Best Way To Do A Split?

[PhilK]

Hi all,

I've made two splits this year by removing the queen with a couple of frames into a 5 frame nuc, waiting for them to build up, then transferring to a 10 frame hive. This doesn't really weaken the donor colony (apart from them making their own queen) but it does take a while for the split to start producing honey.

Is there a more 'even' way of splitting a hive, where both hives are roughly the same strength in the end?

[little john]

One way is to pull frames of brood (without bees) from the stronger hive and donate to the weaker.
Another is to swap hive positions, to more-or-less even-out the forager field-force.

Personally, I wouldn't bother unless there is a really significant difference between colony strengths.
Do bear in mind that some colonies are inherently stronger than others (better queens ?), so you might want to identify those for future queen-rearing rather than mask that strength ?  Also - weakness could be due to a Varroa infestation or disease - so best to check for such things first.
LJ

[Psparr]

You really shouldn't expect much if any honey from a split. That being said, if you really want them "even", you could split the resources and pinch the queen. Then they would both be "even" cheesy.

You could leave the queen with the donor hive and only remove the resources necessary to raise a new queen. That way the original hive should still be strong enough to produce honey.

[little john]

If the honey yield is important to you - suggest you make any splits after the main flow.
LJ

[Acebird]

You really shouldn't expect much if any honey from a split.

http://i697.photobucket.com/albums/vv333/acebird1/2016%20split%20results/DSCF7683_zpsdhoodogr.jpg

Just saying, the hive in the middle was split in the spring which yielded the hive on the left.  The hive on the left is the parent because I split the hive on the left two weeks after it was created and it yielded the hive on the right.  I can tell you that all three of these hives have honey to come off before winter.  The one in the middle has a ton.  These splits were prior to spring flows.  This is not the first time I have done this and the results were similar.  Splitting a hive and letting them make a queen puts the whole hive in forage mode and bring it in they do.  So I am not in favor of splitting after flows.  Good queens require good nutrition.  I will never split after a flow is over.

I just took this photo.

[Psparr]

Nice. You must have a lot more forage than most of us.

[Acebird]

I have begone to say I live in a state of good and plenty.  But I have to modify that now because not to far to the west they was a serious drought this year.  So now my saying is I live in an "area" of good and plenty.  There is no better phrase than "local" when it comes to bees and local can be a very small area.  All the more important to join a club because local information is very helpful.  You don't need to get into the politics or harden ways of the old timers trying to pass on their knowledge.  You do need to have an ear on what is immediately around you when it comes to bees.
We give advice on what we experience and not everyone has the same experience.

[tjc1]

Wow, Ace - that's pretty impressive. I always wonder how people end up with those multi-box hives. I've had  packages do really well over the summer and produce a couple of supers of honey, but they stay at  the 2 deep/3 medium size in terms of brood area. Is this an aspect of what's 'local', would you say?

[Acebird]

Well two deeps, three mediums is about where that tall hive is but it was split and queenless for a month.  That is my point. split, queen rearing and honey.  Is this local?  I have to believe it is because others say it is so hard to do.  When I get to FL I think it is going to be so much harder to do because I am not going to have that break in winter.

[PhilK]

Thanks for the advice all.

No worries here with Varroa, so not worried about that, and the honey is coming in faster than I can provide gear to the bees so not worried about that either.

Was just wondering if there was a quicker way to do it so the new hive created doesn't start from such a poor position.

Recently I spoke to a beekeeper who recommended splitting nucs to increase numbers. Get 2 or 3 nucs say, and when they are packed to bursting, split them into 2 and 3 frames to double your nuc numbers, and so on. That way the full sized hives can produce honey and the nucs can be there 'propogating' hive numbers

[Acebird]

Was just wondering if there was a quicker way to do it so the new hive created doesn't start from such a poor position.

The fastest way to split is to take a hive and bust it up into a whole bunch of nucs.  That will give you the greatest amount of hives.
The easiest way to split is to divide a strong hive in two.  It takes no skill what so ever and gives the split the greatest advantage of survival.  Decide what you want to do and just do it.

[PhilK]

The easiest way to split is to divide a strong hive in two.  It takes no skill what so ever and gives the split the greatest advantage of survival.

This is what I was thinking of. Do you literally just roughly divide all their resources from the brood box into two? What about the supers above the brood, do you divide supers into two and put 5 frames on top of each split?

[Acebird]

I run all mediums.  That almost guarantees that a overwintered hive has brood in two adjoining boxes.  I pull the boxes off a hive to find where the brood is and put one box on a bottom board and the other one on its own bottom board and from there it doesn't matter.  I can't see eggs and I have never found a queen.  I don't bother to look.  After 60 days I know if it worked.  Sometimes, like this year I find open brood in a split, again across two boxes, and I split again.  That is how I went from one to three.  I think this year the double split caused the queen to be replaced.  But I have done it another year and the queen just kept on trucking until I had 8 boxes on the hive and I called it quits.  That is too high for me to handle.
I think bees are much more dedicated to brood then anything else.  I think the whole psyche of a colony is based on brood not the queen.  Beekeepers are hooked on queens.  Bees are hooked on brood.