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Author Topic: Making a split  (Read 5815 times)

Offline tycrnp

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Making a split
« on: March 18, 2018, 02:43:45 am »
I checked my 3 hives today and found my strongest one had queen cells on 2 of the frames.  There were several frames of capped brood and larvae.  I'm not very good at finding the queen.  I saw a video where they shook all of the bees into the brood box, added a queen excluder, then put some some brood frames in a box on top.  Return 24 hours later and remove the top box, add a queen, resulting in a split.

My questions are these: 
1.  Could I put the frames with queen cells in the top box and separate it from the bottom box and expect when a queen hatches I will have a viable split? 
2.  Since I have queen cells on 2 frames, could I potentially put those frames with queen cells in 2 separate boxes with additional frames of brood and honey and have a 3rd hive from the split?

Offline Acebird

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2018, 09:43:18 am »
How many cells?  Be careful it is not a supercedure for a failing queen.  If I thought it was a supercedure I would only remove one frame of cells and divide the hive in half.  If I thought it was a swarm in the making I would divide the heck out of it trying to make sure there were either eggs, young larvae or cells in each divide.
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Offline tycrnp

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2018, 03:04:43 pm »
There is 1 capped queen cell on 1 frame, and 4 queen cells (not yet capped) on the other frame.  I don't think this queen is failing.  There are several frames with lots of brood in a beautiful pattern.

So my next questions are:  If I do the split, do I have to take the split far away from the original hive?  I've heard, "2 feet, 2 miles....doesn't matter."  Does it matter?

Offline Acebird

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2018, 03:45:50 pm »
Strongest hive with 4-5 cells I would not rule out supercedure but either way I do splits.
Now as far as it mattering who did you ask?  I make my splits inches apart.  What matters is how much drift you get.  If each split is over provisioned then what does it matter if you get drift?  There are ways to take care of the imbalance if you want to do it.  I am too lazy.  I use drift to tell me where the queen is because I have never found one inside one of my hives.  The only reason I have for knowing where the queen is because I can split that one again.
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Offline tycrnp

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2018, 04:02:13 pm »
Sounds good, thanks for the help!  And you're not lazy.....just wanna work smarter, not harder!  :wink:

Offline cao

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2018, 05:58:30 pm »
So my next questions are:  If I do the split, do I have to take the split far away from the original hive?  I've heard, "2 feet, 2 miles....doesn't matter."  Does it matter?

If your splits are about equal in strength, then I don't think it matters.  If you are just pulling a couple frames out to make a nuc, then I would not leave them right next door.  In my yard, nucs get moved to an area about 100 feet away.

Strongest hive with 4-5 cells I would not rule out supercedure but either way I do splits.

Anytime I find queen cells on multiple frames, I will make up some nucs. 


Offline beepro

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2018, 08:12:15 pm »
I make splits on the same bee stand.  To compensate for the drift, I would give more bees on the
frames to the old queen hive.  Then save the QCs in the original location where all the foragers will
be returning to.  This way the old queen's hive will not be too depleted of bees.  The QCs nuc hive will
keep all the foragers giving it a rather strong nuc hive.    Look at the hive situation to determine how many
frames of bees for the split.   Can it support a 3-way split?

Offline tycrnp

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2018, 11:41:49 pm »
Beepro, I ended up doing a 3-way split.  Fingers crossed.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Making a split
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2018, 06:22:13 am »
I split a 3 medium box by leaving the queen in the bottom box, putting a double screen on top of it with the next medium on top of that, added a single screen and then placed the third medium on top of it. I did this to give me more hives for BeeFest. They all look good and we will bee splitting all thre of them again on Saturday at BeeFest. We will be putting the split hives on top of the queen right hives with a double screen.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
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