shaking bees

[tlynn]

I split my first hive today and am getting my new queen tomorrow.  New brood box (that came off the first hive) has plenty of capped brood, some eggs, and a couple frames of honey.  And I moved over a frame with a lot of pollen packed in.  Also shaked a couple frames into the new hive (no shaked queen - she was on the other side of the box.  I made sure.)  So new hive is very full of bees right now.  No super on it yet. It's maybe 4 feet from the donor and is painted a different color.  And I put an entrance reducer on the new one, I'd say 75% of the opening restricted.  So it's queenless now and will have a new one by noon or so tomorrow.

Sooo, my question is if I find the bee population in the hive to be a lot lower when I put in my new queen or shortly after, should I shake off some more nurse bees from the donor hive or will those bees know the phermone of their own queen and take out my new one?

And whew, were they pe-o-ed today.  Stings through my shirt and pinging my veil like never before.  I had tons of stingers in my gloves.  I would have been really lumped up without them today.  Had to walk away even.  The guys around here say they get really worked up when we have storms.  No kidding!  Maybe should have postponed it a week.  Oh well.  I'll know for next time.  If there's a hurricane in the area, leave them alone.  Especially since the boxes were all glued down, but at least the storm had passed.

[tlynn]

Let me clarify - if I decide to give the new hive another frame of brood or shake nurse bees from the donor hive will those bees remember the phermones of their queen and kill my new queen in the split hive?

[WhipCityBeeMan]

I would not put bees straight into the existing hive into a new hive.  You would do better moving brood frames. 

It is better still to install the bees into the new hive and have the entrance totally blocked.  Once you put a sufficient amount of frames with bees and brood on them, move it to a location a few miles away to avoid having the bees drift back to the original hive.  After a few days install the caged queen like you would install a package of bees. 

[Brian D. Bray]

I don't shake bees, I trade frames.  Frames of bees belong inside a hive and mixing frames from different hives will not cause fighting as long as only 1 or 2 frames of bees are moved at a time.  I have moved frames of brood, pollen, and/or honey complete with bees attached from one hive to another.  True the forager age bees will most probably return to the original hive if it's in close proximity but another frame of bees can be moved into the hive.

I've used this method to bolster population in a re-queened hive, add brood to a hive to stimulate an idle queen, provide empty comb to a hive that has  backfilled the brood chamber so the queen could lay, feed natural foods to stimulate a weak hive, etc.  I nurse 2 hives back from the brink of starvation this spring by swapping frames back and forth between the 2 hives.  One was OWC, the other Russian, and they are now both 3 mediums high after dwindling down to a baseball sized mass in Mid-May.

When I do splits I usually take one frame from each of 4 hives and place in each nuc.  I split that way up to 5 splits from 5 hives.  The genetic diversity of such a split makes it worth while and the bees are so confused that by the time they sort things out....they're all one hive.

[WhipCityBeeMan]

I agree. Dont shake.  The only time I shake bees is when I am installing a package. Swapping  is much nicer for the bees and the beek.

Good suggestion on making splits.  I have always taken all my frames from the same hive. 

[tlynn]

No shaking.  Yea, they did seem pretty non-plussed by that little trick!  Update - ive is doing well.  New queen's laying.  BIG orientation flight today.  That was exciting to see from the new hive.  Just some concerns about not laying earlier and feeding, which is in another post.  Thanks for the advice guys!