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Author Topic: Best way to create more comb + splits from a strong hive  (Read 7071 times)

Offline kalium

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Best way to create more comb + splits from a strong hive
« on: July 22, 2014, 10:26:20 am »
I'm currently interested in what would be the quickest method of creating splits into boxes with no comb,
and all we are starting with is a double deep strong hive.

What if you were to nadir the double deep? IIRC bees like to put their brood closer to the entrance,
and so I would guess they would happily draw comb in the bottom box and begin laying there.

Once most of the comb had been drawn and brood in it I could imagine taking that box and giving
it a new queen (or if the existing queen happened to be in that box you took out then you'd have
to give the strong hive a new queen) and you have a new hive. You would then replace that box
you took out with another empty one and the process repeats.

The main advantage that I can tell is that you get the economy of scale that a strong double deep
hive gives you. As far as I can tell, other options would involve splitting the hive up, and thus weaken it.

Does this make any sense, or would it mostly be a waste of time?

Offline OldMech

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Re: Best way to create more comb + splits from a strong hive
« Reply #1 on: July 22, 2014, 10:53:39 am »

  Start the splits with a couple frames of brood and a frame of pollen/nectar or honey. Give them a queen, or  move the old queen and give the old hive the new queen. They will have a start, and rapidly begin drawing comb on the un drawn frames..   Feed them to get them up and going. A Jar of syrup with about three tiny holes in it..  this will keep them from stuffing it all in the empty cells, but will give them the resource they need to get going while they sort out their own foragers and find nectar sources.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline kalium

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Re: Best way to create more comb + splits from a strong hive
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2014, 11:27:50 pm »
Yes I think my theory of large hives building the comb quicker is misguided.

I just read the following in the "Bees and BeeKeeping" book, in regard to making wax:

  ".. and small colonies produce more in proportion to their size than large ones."

So there you go.


Offline OldMech

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Re: Best way to create more comb + splits from a strong hive
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2014, 12:27:13 am »
 :-D   Nucs also tend to build worker comb instead of drone comb. Keeping nucs all year has advantages!
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

 

anything