Welcome, Guest

Author Topic: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?  (Read 3924 times)

Offline PhilK

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Male
Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« on: July 27, 2016, 09:23:58 pm »
So we had a big bee day yesterday. Moved three hives that were just brood boxes and put supers on two (the last needs a super as well but I don't have one ready yet)

At our home yard we have hive A and B. B has been going gangbusters pretty much all winter, 20x the entrance activity compared to A. Yesterday we decided to inspect both and swap their locations to boos As population.

A was going OK - brood box with small patches of brood surrounded by honey and pollen, super with no capped frames but lots of open nectar. B was insane! I've never seen so many bees in a hive, and it's got two supers and a brood box. The first super had 10 deep frames of fully capped honey, and the top super had 10 frames of about half capped honey.

The brood box was packed with bees and that queen's brood is crazy - wall to wall brood on most frames, lots of pollen in the outside frames. We decided to split as she looked like she didn't have much space to lay and there was a bit of drone brood around the place. We had a 5 frame nuc so I gave them one frame of honey, one frame pollen and sealed brood, the frame the old queen was on with open brood, and two foundation frames. Pattern was HBBFF. Shook some extra bees into it, and sit it a few steps away from the parent hive with a leafy branch over the front.

Swapped A and B an there's lots of activity at both hives now, but not much at the nuc. Sorry for the long post but my questions are:

1. did I do the split right? Should I worry there isn't much nuc activity? I really don't want to lose this queen!

2. Hive B is now queenless - what's my next move? When should I check for queen cells, or a laying queen?

Offline cao

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1678
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #1 on: July 27, 2016, 09:48:52 pm »
You did what I did this spring with a couple of my hives.  The nuc you made has mostly nurse bees so there won't be alot of activity right away.  It should gradually increase over time.  Check on hive B in a week and plan on seeing lots of capped queen cells. One of my hives had at least 20 cells on eight different frames capped in a week.  I made seven more nucs from that hive.  Just remember to leave at least one in the original hive.  If you don't want any more splits then you can let them sort it out.  Although if they are super packed with bees they could swarm.  Just to let you know how mine turned out: The original split with the queen has built up to a full size hive and is doing well.  The original hive has produced honey this year.  The seven splits: five are almost full size with two lagging behind. 

Offline PhilK

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #2 on: July 27, 2016, 10:09:09 pm »
Thanks cao. She is an amazing queen, way better than my others. Would it be worth pinching the others and putting queen cells from B into their hives? Or does it not work that way

Offline BeeMaster2

  • Administrator
  • Universal Bee
  • *******
  • Posts: 13494
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #3 on: July 27, 2016, 10:48:07 pm »
That is a good way to increase the strength of all of your hives.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline PhilK

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2016, 11:12:02 pm »
Hey guys I checked the hive on Thursday (8 days after taking the queen out) and saw a few capped queen cells. Today it's a hot sunny day and there are drones active at the hives, what's my next step here? Wait a few weeks and check for eggs?

Offline cao

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1678
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2016, 11:21:57 pm »
>Wait a few weeks and check for eggs?

Yes.  I'd give them at least 2 weeks minimum(3 would be better).

Offline PhilK

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #6 on: August 07, 2016, 09:02:35 pm »
There was about 3 sealed queen cells, and one being made where they were feeding a larva. Should I be worried that they will swarm if they have more queens than they need?

The queen cells also seemed smaller than I have seen before.. is this because they are emergency queen cells?

Offline cao

  • Super Bee
  • *****
  • Posts: 1678
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #7 on: August 07, 2016, 11:04:56 pm »
>Should I be worried that they will swarm if they have more queens than they need?

If they honeybound and packed full of bees they could still swarm.  My bet is that they think that they have already swarmed and would be happy to just get one good queen out of the swarm cells.

Offline west end apiary

  • New Bee
  • *
  • Posts: 33
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #8 on: August 22, 2016, 05:55:38 am »
so how did this go? did you get some nucs?

I just made four more nucs from my hives and the one i made mid july went well. Good laying queen in there.

Hope yours are doing well

Offline PhilK

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2016, 01:03:19 am »
Just did one split with one hive.

The donor hive is doing well, it had QCs but I haven't distrubed it since - I will open it this weekend to see if there is a laying queen.

The nuc is doing well, aside from the fact they won't draw their foundation. They started building wax above the already drawn and used frames, bvut ignored the foundation. I've interspersed the foundation among the brood portion so this should help them - will check this weekend as well

Offline OzBuzz

  • Queen Bee
  • ****
  • Posts: 1031
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2016, 10:28:00 pm »
Phil, you could also take some of the capped brood from hive B, shake the bees off, and place it in A to boost the population - by the time your queen cell hatches though it's likely that all of that capped brood will have hatched - your population will be booming and you may need to do some more swarm management after the new queen has hatched and is laying

Offline PhilK

  • House Bee
  • **
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Male
Re: Hive Split - Did I Do It Right?
« Reply #11 on: September 21, 2016, 02:54:44 am »
Nuc is transferred into a full box and will need a super ASAP but I don't have one ready to go which is annoying (just needs to be painted)
Donor hive is going great and have raised an excellent quen - truly her mother's daughter when it comes to amount of brood!

The other split we did (recently) isn't doing as well. I forgot to shake bees into the nuc after transfering so they have been extremely slow. Tomorrow morning I am going to swap positions of the nuc and a strong hive to encourage some more bees to join the nuc

 

anything