Splitting between flows

[BurleyBee]

The Privet is about to hit any day and typically only last a little over a week.  Looking at my notes, there tends to be a small dearth between the Privet and Tallow.  I?m planning on harvesting privet honey, taking a few frames brood for Nucs, and moving to a Tallow dense yard.

These hives are currently packed and I?ve been having to cut queen cells every 5 days the past few weeks.  Once I move, the tallow would hit 3-4 weeks later.  How many frames of brood should I leave behind??  I was considering taking them down to singles for easier moving.

[Ben Framed]

You will probably get different opinions about this. You will benefit most if your hive is at its peek of strength in a flow. If I was determined a split necessary to prevent swarming, with only a few weeks of time in-between flows. I would leave plenty of 'brood' and 'bees' too. That is if you are relying on raising a queen from this same hive. You will need to consider the time it takes to raise a new queen and the added time of mating and new laying begins. I would not weaken the hive any more that I though was absolutely necessary to stop swarming. Its a juggling act. TheHoneyPump has posted some good stuff about timing. Maybe he will give you better advice.

Phillip

[BurleyBee]

The parent hive will keep queen to go to a different yard.  The small split would get a mated queen.  It may be too much for me to do, but just getting ideas.

[TheHoneyPump]

The parent hive will keep queen to go to a different yard.  The small split would get a mated queen.  It may be too much for me to do, but just getting ideas.

Need more info.  For your area/location; What is your ideal size of the hive when in honey flow?  2 boxes? 7 boxes?   How many pounds / kilogram do you expect them to make in the tallow.  How long is the tallow flow?   

[BurleyBee]

Tallow flow is 2-3 weeks in June.  Can fill 2 deeps on a strong hive (I run all deeps), sometimes more.  Last year I ran singles for tallow just to see how it would do and it worked well, but those were from spring Nucs I grew for tallow.  These current hives are double deeps.

2 of my hives are collecting honey just fine without queen cells,  the others are constantly making cells.  I split them all aggressively in the spring.  I?m assuming the ones with cells may just have swarmy genetics.

[TheHoneyPump]

If were me.  For only 2-3 boxes of honey I would cut them down and set them up for the tallow move as full powered singles with 3 big frames of mature capped brood, 2 frames of open brood, 2 frames of food and 3 foundation. Plus the box full of mature bees. Set them this way 2 weeks before the tallow flow but only 2 to 4 days before the move. Upon moving them, immediately install a queen excluder, box of foundation on the excluder and a box of drawn comb above. (3 deeps total). Walk away for a week and come back see how they are progressing. Adjust up or down from there based in n what you see. With this setup the brood will burst in a week and along with the bees already in the box will completely fill 2 boxes with working walking bees. The third box is for extra work-living space and nectar processing. The foundation will keep the wax makers busy and will be drawn lightning fast. When the tallow really gets flowing you may be adding a 4th box of drawn comb.
If they are packed now, you could get started at setting them that way now (3 deep), and just skim brood frames and excess bees from each of them into nucs once a week until move time.
For the nucs, are you installing caged queens, grafting your cells, or doing walk aways?  If grafting; you already know which 2 mothers to choose from.  Caged are straight forward.  Walk-aways - no advice from me as I do not make nucs without a ripe cell in hand or a caged queen in my pocket. My season is much too short to waste any time or potential on walk-aways. With walk aways you could be propagating stock you may not want, and will lose over a month of growth and productivity potential in all of the nucs.

Hope that helps.

[BurleyBee]

Man I really appreciate that response.  My brain was moving in that direction, but I wasn?t sure on brood numbers.  I typically graft, but with time constraints I may buy some mated queens from a good local source.  I plan on grafting late season.  Again thank you for that information.

[Oldbeavo]

This may not be as relevant time wise as splitting for swarm control and splitting for increasing hive numbers can be done at different times of the season.
We will split for swarm control in early September at cherry pollination, we like to split before we find queen cells and will usually halve the brood in the hive, 2-3 frames which go into a nuc and raise their own queen. Cells are not available this early in the season. Drone larvae will have purple eyes at this time.
For increasing hive numbers, this will be done in late October/ November, with cells or mated queens. In an 8 frame deep we will take 2 frames brood from one hive and 3 from another, to give the new hive 5 frames of brood, 1 honey and 2 frames foundation.
This hive will be collecting honey by late December if the flow is good enough.

Convert the months forNorthern Hemisphere, Almonds August, Cherries September