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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by beesnweeds on Today at 06:11:23 pm »

Can I just split this colony?

At the end of the day there's only 2 ways to make a split.  You can purchase a queen or allow the split to make its own which in your case will be an emergency queen.  When I make splits, they either have charged swarm cells, or I have mated queens ready.  Emergency queens can sometimes be poor quality.  If you make the split now it will be around 30 days until the new queen is laying and another 12 days for bees the best age to produce wax.  You might be able to pull it off but once August comes around wax production gets harder.  Honestly you should focus on getting your new hive strong for winter and learn about mite/honeybee life cycle and biology.  Your bees could produce honey this year and make splits next year.

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FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE / Re: Not all pollen is the same

« Last post by Occam on Today at 02:34:24 pm »

Occam - is this related?
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/20220831.htm

I couldn't say, I was referencing allergies and illness not death itself. My "death by a million cuts" comment was a figure of speech. That said illness and disease, especially chronic, can and do lead to death. It does behoove us to be circumspect about what we're doing in our personal lives, reducing our use of plastics, growing our own food sources, living and working with nature as much as possible instead of trying to control or subdue it. We're pretty short lived and weak beings if we're honest with ourselves, nature will always outlast us and wear us out with its relentless force. We would do well to do all we can to come alongside nature, learn from nature, mimic nature, and we would find ourselves healthier, more satisfied, and more fulfilled in life. Building our houses and offices to be sealed off, growing our food in labs, separating ourselves in as many ways as we can, and then expecting that our bodies wouldn't react to an outside force like pollen is completely asinine and insane of us to think. Climate change isnt the issue, it's us. Even if climate change (and climate always changes, always has always will with or without us) is increasing the pollen around us, if we spent the majority of our time outdoors, or in an environment with free airflow from outside to inside like 100 years ago this wouldn't be a conversation because our bodies would be adapting to the slight (relatively speaking) change in pollen versus what we now encounter when we leave our sealed off, filtered, and sanitized environments

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 12:28:57 pm »

There are so, so many ways to make a split, depending on the time of year, the goal of the split, and the equipment you have at your disposal.  I'm bad with the terminology surrounding different types of splits, because there are just so many ways to do it, and I prefer to just think through the process logically each time.  The thing to ask yourself when you split a hive is this: what is each half now lacking, and how do I make sure they can manage well until they have it again? 

Here is what I typically do, but again, there are 100 ways to skin this cat.  When I split for increase, I try to mimic a swarm, so I'll move the frame with the queen into the new hive.  I make sure there are drawn blanks for her to lay in, some capped brood, and plenty of stores, because this side of the split will be lacking foragers, and therefore won't have food coming in until the bees that emerge in the new hive begin foraging (which they will do early, in the absence of older bees).  All the current flying bees that I have incidentally moved are oriented to the original colony's location, and when they leave the new hive to go forage, they will return back to the old hive. 

In the original location, they are now lacking a queen, so in order to make one they will need frames with eggs and also plenty of nurse bees, so I ensure the original colony also has capped brood, since nursing is the job of the young bees.  If I'm expecting a big flow, I'll also be sure the original colony has the supers they need, because I don't want to disturb that colony until the new queen has mated.   

In your case, Terri, the question is going to be if the hive is really big enough to split down the middle yet.  If not, making a nuc off of the hive may be better, but that nuc will have gotten a very late start.  Or, you could do something like Phillip described, and wait and make a nuc off your hive later in the season, if you don't catch a swarm.  You will then have to overwinter that nuc, but one strong colony and one nuc might be preferable to 2 weaker colonies going into winter.  It's just a matter of preference and proper timing in your situation.       

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Terri Yaki on Today at 11:20:47 am »

I'd like to hear more about the strategic part of it. I guess that first I should determine at what point do I draw the line as too late to do so. I'm thinking that a couple more frame manipulations would be in order to help fill them out and make a split when resources are high for both boxes. One box being a medium would have to be taken into account in the event of an uneven distribution of resources between the boxes. Deep frames just will not fit into a medium. I do have more deep boxes but I question whether the excess space of mediums in a deep would be a good move. And again, ultimately, I'd like to score a swarm and this would be a possible plan 'B', if it's feasible. And I almost forgot, I did pick up a five frame deep box nuc that I could throw together and use, if that would be a better option. I could grab five good deep frames and toss them into the nuc and replace them with new frames.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Ben Framed on Today at 11:18:44 am »

Reagan gave a very good answer which will help you realize available options.  Do you want honey this season or is your goal primarily building up bees? You can have both if you choose to wait and split late summer or Fall. Of course you will need to help the split out as late summer is usually dearth time and the Fall flow is not as strong as the Spring (speaking of my location). You will need to feed the late split with pollen sub as well.

Being this is your first bees in your first season, you are taking in a large amount of information. You may or may not know that bees have to have both pollen and nectar (or sugar water) to thrive. If you feed both, even in dearth, they will thrive, which has been my experience.  And prosper is exactly what you will need before Winter arrives. 

For example:
My very first season , this is exactly what I did. I let my hive build up the whole season until late and then split the >strong hive<, making 5 nucs. (Though this was not my plan, another story),  I ordered 4 MATED queens and this was during VERY late Fall when I did so! I am happy to tell you, that by following David?s instructions (from barnyard bees),  all five not only made it through the winter, ( The one with the original queen as well as the 4 with purchased queens), but came out full speed ahead the following Spring. . It was a fun project! . And remember these are just a couple ideas, there are several ways to make successful splits!  Best of luck what ever you decide!

Phillip

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FARMING & COUNTRY LIFE / Re: Not all pollen is the same

« Last post by Kathyp on Today at 11:01:47 am »

Max, one of the interesting things in your article is this:  The declines in life expectancy since 2019 are largely driven by the pandemic. COVID-19 deaths contributed to nearly three-fourths or 74% of the decline from 2019 to 2020 and 50% of the decline from 2020 to 2021. An estimated 16% of the decline in life expectancy from 2020 to 2021 can be attributed to increases in deaths from accidents/unintentional injuries. Drug overdose deaths account for nearly half of all unintentional injury deaths. The most recent data reported by NCHS showed more than 109,000 overdose deaths in the one-year period ending in March of 2022.

Again, I think there are multiple reasons but have you read the reports on excess deaths during and after COVID?  That's some interesting stuff and still being analyzed. 

The stats on fentanyl deaths are staggering too.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/895945/fentanyl-overdose-deaths-us/

Unlike past drug use spikes, this one is almost 100% coming from the outside.  People used to cook meth here, but fentanyl is coming in by the truck load through Mexico, ingredients courtesy of China.  It's a big problem and one that hurts a lot of innocent people because the stuff is so toxic you can be poisoned just by touching something that has fentanyl on it.

Other things, like infant and maternal deaths, and some lifestyle diseases we can't really use in the stats because people who come in from other countries often have not had good healthcare or healthcare at all, so they should be excluded from these stats.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Curious done behavior (at least to me)

« Last post by Occam on Today at 10:58:16 am »

Sounds like the hive is ok. It might just bee that they are kicking the drones out.
Jim Altmiller

Hopefully so. Planning on splitting this evening if all looks good and I provided I get home early enough. Apparently people think I need to do a job and not hang out with my bees all day

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by The15thMember on Today at 10:54:20 am »

You can split, but realize that it will set both colonies back, so you may have to continue to baby the two colonies longer than you otherwise would have the one colony.  You will definitely want to inspect before doing so, because the contents of that second box will determine whether or not the job can be as simple as just separating the two boxes.  I might be inclined to do a little more strategic of a split given that the colony is already behind, just because it's only their first year.   

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: A General Hive Question

« Last post by Ben Framed on Today at 10:51:22 am »

You are very welcome Terri. He is quite efficient Terri and a good communicator as well. He has other videos that are VERY informative as well.
Yes you can split if you wish.

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GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. / Re: Curious done behavior (at least to me)

« Last post by Terri Yaki on Today at 10:10:03 am »

Poor guys, all they get is used and abused.