Split Plan

[Bush_84]

Hello all. I am planning a batch of queen cells and wanted thoughts.

First off my situation. Six hives. Two new packages that were given all drawn comb and honey. Three strong Nucs that were also started with drawn comb and honey. One overwintered hive. I want to requeen the overwintered hive and the Nucs. The Nucs are by far the strongest but we the meanest bees I have ever kept. I installed the packages in five frame Nucs. They are currently filling out their third box. The overwintered hive and Nucs are all in 8 frame equipment. All in two deeps and a medium super.

As far as my requeening goes I?d take the old queens and put them in a nuc just in case. I?d maybe pull 2-3 frames of bees with her to put in the nuc. I don?t want to hurt honey production much if I can help it. So I want to set them up but also not hinder my production hives. I still have plenty of drawn comb. I haven?t inventoried anything but I should be ok in that department. My thoughts are that as far as timing goes this would be a good time for a cut down split. If I start my cells soon I should have my timing right for a cutdown split. My biggest honey flow tends to start in July and slow down mid August. One thought I had was if I put 2-3 frames of bees in should I put the new nuc at the new or old location?  I don?t have a second apiary to move them. My other thought is I was going to try overwintering my mating Nucs. I could shake two frames of bees in there and put the old queens there. That?d require less initial investment.

I was also thinking that I could maybe take the third nuc box off of my packages. They are my queen rearing units. I was planning on wintering them in a 2x2 setup. So just take the top box off and place it in a new location with a queen cell. Another possibility is to move the package nuc and the third box to a new location and move one of my weaker splits to that location. Returning foragers could bolster their numbers and I don?t take a hit to honey production.

That?d leave me with the my four production hives. Two packages in a 2x2 setup. The two single nuc split from the package nuc. Whatever I decide to do with my four old queens and a single mini mating nuc that I setup a couple of weeks ago (forgot to mention that earlier). After writing this out I think I may pinch the queen from my overwintered hive. She is old and has had chalkbrood something awful every spring. She has been very good but I have no use for her. Their hive is also the weakest production hive and if they will make me honey I need to leave them alone. Going into winter I?d hive four 8 frame hives. Four Nucs if I put old queens in mini Nucs or seven Nucs if I make Nucs with them.

[cao]

I have never found the need to pinch a queen yet.  If you are requeening and have the spare equipment, I'd just pull the queen with one maybe two frames of bees(I'm assuming you are talking deep frames) and put them in a nuc with a couple drawn frames.  If they make something, great.  If not, no big loss. 

I make splits with just 2 or 3 medium frames all the time.  If there is a good flow on they do fine.  As far as location, my splits just get moved a little ways down the line of hives.  I try to keep the small hives separated from the bigger ones by whatever space that is available.  This year due to lots of splits that distance is only about ten feet. 

With your bee shed you could experiment with you extra queens and try to overwinter them in just a single five frame nuc. 

[BeeMaster2]

Bush,
Since you have plenty of drawn comb I would take advantage of it. Especially the older, darker comb. You can take the queens and a bunch of nurse bees, and old drawn comb and put them in the nucs. Move the nucs to a new location. The queens can start laying immediately and fill them with brood. This will leave all the brood in the original hives and provide good support for them until the new queens eggs hatch and start nurse duties.
Before you start this, I would put a double screen between any of the double brood boxes that you have. This will start the bees making queens and have queen cells started before you move the queens.
Jim

[Bush_84]

I have been playing around with my queen rearing technique. I have determined that I am unable to graft at my hives. My workshop is a couple hundred yards away. So I just take take my frame back to my workshop and it all works out better. I have a special frame rest, better lighting, and magnification. All of my attempts outside of my workshop have gone poorly. So lesson one.

I also tried hanging cells from the top bars between frames. I figured this would be a good way to raise a couple of cells at a time. They drew them out but they drew them out a little to well. Cells would get attached to both frames and impossible to remove without damage. Lesson two.

I also tried reducing space with frame feeders to simulate the Ben harden method. That worked out well. It allowed me to rear some queens before my hives were packed full of bees. Now that they have filled out better I should be able to take them out. Overall worked out well. Lesson 3.

I also tried a cloake board. That also worked out great. My system isn?t what I?d call a standard cloake board system but it worked out great for my nucs. It worked out much better than trying to figure out a queenless system for such a small amount of cells. I?m adjusting it a bit as I go to make sure things smoothly. Multiple lessons there.

So going forward I?m getting my process down. This is my second year queen rearing. My first year was a lot of failure. Hoping this year goes better. So far I have one queen made this year while tinkering. Not laying yet.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Bush, looks like you are doing well, the only note I would add is: I place a hair roller cage over the capped queen cell.  This prevents webbing of the queen cell.

I used to rear queen cells in an incubator, this is easier for me.  However Brother Adam suggest queens hatched in a hive are {better} queens than those hatched in an incubator.  So now I hatch queens in a hive, protected by hair roller cages.  After hatching single virgin queens are placed in nucs or where needed.
Blessings

[eltalia]

Bush, looks like you are doing well, the only note I would add is: I place a hair roller cage over the capped queen cell.  This prevents webbing of the queen cell.

I used to rear queen cells in an incubator, this is easier for me.  However Brother Adam suggest queens hatched in a hive are {better} queens than those hatched in an incubator.  So now I hatch queens in a hive, protected by hair roller cages.  After hatching single virgin queens are placed in nucs or where needed.
Blessings

Heh... I bet you leave folks wondering on leaving the hair salon with
your box of hair rollers! /chuckle/

Talking from experience as in another Life I had cause to use (once)
around 300 tampons in an engineering exercise. That store owner
was scratching his head as I loaded every box he had in the shop
into my car. And back at base the clerk in reconciling my petty cash
expenses made it obvious he had serious doubts as to my honesty!

The use was for cleaning the detritus out of the tubes of a large heat
exchanger, a task that others had deemed impossible to uneconomical
as the job had to be "squeaky clean". Them tampons sure did squeak
as the guys dragged them through the tubes!! Heh Heh... :-))))

Bill

[Bush_84]

A little update. I took all of my lessons thus far and made another batch of cells. I took out the frame feeders, used the cloake board, and used a dedicated cell frame. My first attempt was a 100% bust. The lesson there was the importance of putting in the sliding board the day before. If you don?t they won?t draw any cells. I didn?t have the time to put it in the day before and they didn?t make one. The latest batch I got 8/10.  Not perfect but acceptable.

My main goal here is to replace some queens. So here?s my current plan. I have those three cranky queens. They will get cells. I will take the queens out with some bees. I will setup a five frame nuc with a frame feeder. They can fit three frames. That?s plenty to keep the queens in reserve and minimal enough to avoid sucking the parent hive dry.  So that?s three out of my eight cells accounted for.

My next goal was to replace an old queen. She is three years old. Last year she was my strongest.  She made me the most honey last year. This year she has stalled. She has always struggled mightily with chalkbrood. This is the main reason I don?t graft from her.  Chalkbrood is a pain. They are currently filling two 8 frame deeps but don?t look strong enough to take advantage of my flow. So I?m going to pinch her and split the hive in two. I?ll give each split a cell. That?s a total of two cells and I have now used 5/8 cells.

The rest will go to mini mating Nucs. I?m happy with the way that my other mini mating nuc has done. I?ll shake in a frame or two of bees from my package bees that were installed in Nucs. They are both three high and are looking pretty full. I?ll make up three of those and call it a day. That will use up the rest of my cells. At some point in July I?m thinking I?ll make up two more Nucs. I?ll take a box off of my package Nucs and install one of my mini mating Nuc queens. I?ll combing the now queenless mini mating nuc with a queenright mini mating nuc. That?ll give them a population boost for winter and allow me to make up a new nuc while utilizing extra population. I have enough brood comb to give these new Nucs an extra box of comb. So they can simply expand and get ready for winter.

Right now my mini mating Nucs are five frame mediums. I have bigger boxes that are made of out 2x and take eight frames. I want to winter these mating Nucs in these boxes. I hope to build them up into as many stories as they will expand. They won?t have much comb but if everything goes right they?ll at least have ten frames of bees, but should be able to expand to fill at least two eight frame boxes.