Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: ziffabeek on February 15, 2011, 11:27:21 am
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So, this last weekend was bee-a-u-tiful! And I was able to pop the top on the hive. I currently have one hive with 2 deeps and a medium on top. The bottom deep was pretty much empty going into winter, but I didn’t get it off before the weather went cold so they’ve come through the winter in that set up. They had the medium full of honey and a couple frames in the middle deep.
The girls seem healthy and happy – fat with well formed wings and happily buzzin, and the mite count seems to have dropped with the brood break. When I went in on Sunday, the medium still looked almost full of honey. I took a peek at the middle deep, but didn’t pull any frames (it was a little windy and I wanted to disturb them as little as possible). 3-4 frames looked empty, but it still had at least 1 frames of honey and the rest had bees on them. The bees were covering 4-5 frames to one side of the deep and the same frames in the medium. Again, I didn’t check for brood, but I’m pretty sure I’ve had at least one small orientation flight in the last week. And they have been bringing in lots of multi-colored pollen on the sprinkling of warm days we have had in Atlanta.
So – the plan. I really want to try and split this hive this spring. They seem to be pretty strong (heh, made it through 2 cold winters with my blundering newbie beekeeping – they must be pretty resilient!) so I think a split would be a good idea, plus my husband banned me from spending any more money on them this year! (no new queens for me :oops:) The weather looks pretty good for the next few weeks and the almanac says a mildish spring. (Plus General Beauregard says early spring) soooo, my plan is to give them some 1:1 syrup in hopes to start them building up. Then, around March 30 or the beginning of April, pull some frames of eggs and honey and put them in a new deep with some drawn frames I have from last year. Cross my fingers, feed and hope they build a queen.
Does this sound like it might work? Do you think it is a bad idea to encourage them to build up early? I am thinking that with a full medium of honey, plus some supplemental feed, they should have enough food until the flow starts. I would love to hear ya’lls thoughts/advice/warnings.
Thanks! And happy-almost-spring-but-know-the-winter-is-not-over-but-almost-and-can-hardly-wait season!!!!
Love,
ziffa
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Ziffa,
If you are planning on splitting and have been banned ( ;) ) from spending more money for queen you're on the right track. However, I'd also recommend starting to raise your own queens. Make a couple nuc boxes and start some nucs. In those you can grow your own queens without risking a full hive if something happens to the queen when she mates. It allows you to do a lot of things and be more relaxed because you know you have a back up safety net if something goes wrong.
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Some beeks will recommend that you remove the old queen, if you can find her, along with the new colony you are establishing. The reason being that the old/mother colony will be in better shape to produce a new queen than the new one, but either way can work for getting a new colony going, especially if, like me, your eyesite isn't so good ;). Good luck, let us all know how it goes.
thomas
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For a weak, might make it nuc and a strong honey producing hive, do it your way. For two fairly equal hives that won't likely produce excess honey this year, do it Tbeeks way.
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Thanks fellas!
Hmmm, ponder ponder.. .
I would LOVE to learn how to make queens! I've read about it, but am intimidated. Maybe this summer after Bud3.
So much to do, so few weekends!
love,
liziffa
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Ziffa, we'll be doing a queen grafting session at Bud's again this year. There's nothing like a little hands-on demo to get you going!
Scott
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i went through the grafting fear last year, DONT FEAR IT!!!
it is great fun and even if you dont get alot of queens it is still fun.
read and ask questions but dont let fear stop you.
grafting is really easy after you try!
then go to bud 3 and refine your skills so when you go home you can make even more!!
it really isnt that hard with good glasses and good weather if your flow is on.
bailey
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Some beeks will recommend that you remove the old queen, if you can find her, along with the new colony you are establishing. The reason being that the old/mother colony will be in better shape to produce a new queen than the new one, but either way can work for getting a new colony going, especially if, like me, your eyesite isn't so good ;). Good luck, let us all know how it goes.
thomas
The reason for removing the old queen when making a split is to mimic the act of swarming. In swarming the old queen leaves the hive and lets the new queen take over. Moving the old queen to the new hive gives a better odds against additional swarming since the hive has already, artificially, swarmed. But, as with bees, nothing is guaranteed.
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Unfortunately, some of us with less than adequate eysite must rely on the bees when the queen cannot be found, my point being that leaving the queen with the old hive 'will' also work. It may not be the prefered method (mine or anyone elses), but the results are similar, if not perfect. I can find the queen only about 1/4 of the time I'm looking for her, usually due to the behavoir of those caring for her.
Bad eysite and beekeeping can sometimes stink ;)
thomas
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Well, if your husband won't let you spend money on the girls, perhaps it's time to get a new husband??? The nerve of some people.... :-D
Splitting a hive is always fun, at least for me. Pam will occasionally pop down to my apiary, stand around and count and say something like, "When did you get more hives?" To which I respond, "They just showed up one day..." I've managed to go from 4 my first year, to 15 my second. Who knows where I'll end up this year. I'd also like to try my hand at grafting, but I fear that will have to wait until next year. My ultimate goal is to supply myself with my own bees and queens, plus be in a position to help any other beeks in my area of the state if they would need a queen or two in an situation such as yours.
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Well, if your husband won't let you spend money on the girls, perhaps it's time to get a new husband??? The nerve of some people.... :-D
Splitting a hive is always fun, at least for me. Pam will occasionally pop down to my apiary, stand around and count and say something like, "When did you get more hives?" To which I respond, "They just showed up one day..." I've managed to go from 4 my first year, to 15 my second. Who knows where I'll end up this year. I'd also like to try my hand at grafting, but I fear that will have to wait until next year. My ultimate goal is to supply myself with my own bees and queens, plus be in a position to help any other beeks in my area of the state if they would need a queen or two in an situation such as yours.
If you want to raise queens and only need a limited quantity why not use a queen castle? You can raise 4 queens at a time, thee bees pick the eggs, and one a queen is mated she will lay enough brood in the 2 or 3 frames to start another queen from when that queen is removed for placement.
My younger brother just finished making me a 12 frame queen castle, 4 3 frame sections with dividers, 13 frames w/o dividers. I can use each section for a replacement queen or pull all 3 frames of a section and start a nuc. I've got to paint it, but should have the castle populated by late March, pulling 2 frames from each of the 3 hives in my home yard. Once I get a queen out of those I'll start sectioning out until I get all four sections going and will then build a couple of nucs per month until mid-Juy.
My younger brother has decided to become a commercial beekeeper so while I'm teaching him beekeeping, I'm also buying into the business by helping him build his hive count.
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Wow Brian....A queen castle?????
You might have to start a new thread with some solid details for the rest of us.
to cool
thomas
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I would love to hear more about the queen castle as well. I'd love to try to raise queens, but I'm a little worried that I'd end up with superfluous queens. I'm an urban beekeeper, so have limited room. If I couldn't find anybody who wanted a queen, I wouldn't know what to do with the extra!
But it is an interesting idea! I can't wait to learn more about it at Bud3!
Thanks for all the comments everybody! Hopefully we are having the last cold spell here in Atlanta, Can't wait for the warm weather to hit so I can try the split!!
love,
ziffabeek
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Somehow, I don't think finding a home for extra queens would be a problem.d... :-D I haven't done any queen rearing yet, but there is some easy to follow info out there to check out as a pre-BUD primer at least. Check out the Brushy Mountain Webinars - there is one on queen rearing, and (Pardon the plug) there is a thread with pictures (it may be a sticky) on Beesource "Raising queen cells without grafting" that looked interesting. Experienced beeks chime in if there is anything wrong with the methods in the above.
JC