Advice required regards hive split

[Stevo1977]

I’d would like some advice regards the following please.

I have a double brood colony that’s thriving that I had planned to split. The method I’ll use is a method I’ve used before whereby you take roughly half of the brood frames and a honey frame remove the Bees from said frames and place on the same colony above a Queen excluder then 24hours later remove the brood box and start as a new colony with a bought Queen. The question I have is that after the inspection I have noticed at least 2 -3 Queen cells if I take that frame over into a new colony and introduce a new Queen. Will the bought queen dispatch the queen cells or will she leave them and when one of them arrive will they kill her?

 

[jeff33]

They will kill her as they prefer to raise their own.
Leave the Q- box above the QX for 9 days until they cannot make any QCs from this box then split and introduce the new queen.
Why have they made QCs though, are the BB separated by supers?

 

[Stevo1977]

Nope the BB’s are on top of each other. I think the reason they have produced QC’s is because they’re planning to swarm for space. I don’t really want to add a third BB. I’d rather try and go back to one BB and expand with Supers hence the split. Also I should have mentioned they are Buckfast and so would rather not have them requeen theirselves.

 

[mjt68]

Read up on artificial swarms. Pagden, queenright nuc etc. They'll result in increase easily enough. I'll steer clear of getting involved in buckfast Vs mongrels vs carni vs...

 

[jeff33]

You must do a split then. Brood + queen separated from the flyers or flyers + queen separated from the brood in a box with foundation. Think how you can then increase by using a mated queen.

 

[Stevo1977]

The Pagden method allows them to requeen themselves which I don’t want to do as they are Buckfast and any split I do will ultimately have queen cells in. How about if I let them requeen and then remove her myself (seems a shame) and then re-introduce a mated bought queen?

 

[mjt68]

The Pagden method allows them to requeen themselves which I don’t want to do as they are Buckfast and any split I do will ultimately have queen cells in. How about if I let them requeen and then remove her myself (seems a shame) and then re-introduce a mated bought queen?

Yep, would work and yep, seems a shame. Personally I would at least wait and see what the new queen and her daughters were like. Might save yourself 40 quid and get you on the way to rearing your own queens.

Alternatively, k/d queen cells before they emerge and leave them hopelessly queenless before introducing. Your bees, your money, your choice.

 

[Stevo1977]

Thanks for your advice folks, it’s appreciated.

 

[jeff33]

If you separate brood and queen from the flyers you can re-unite in 2-3 weeks without letting them raise a new queen. Do the split and add a frame of young larvae in the Q- part (which is left on the original site). In a week time go in that hive, remove the frame which will now have emergency QC and replace with another frame of young larvae. After another week, remove that frame and unite with your queen right half.

If you want to use the opportunity to increase, make up a nuc using frames of brood and food from the hive. Easiest way is to separate a couple of frames of brood from the queen above a QX, leave for 8 days and make up a nuc using only these frames of brood as they will not be able to raise queens from them. Introduce a mated queen.

 

[Millet]

Yep, would work and yep, seems a shame. Personally I would at least wait and see what the new queen and her daughters were like. Might save yourself 40 quid and get you on the way to rearing your own queens.

Alternatively, k/d queen cells before they emerge and leave them hopelessly queenless before introducing. Your bees, your money, your choice.

Sound advice IMO.. last year i had four F2 buckfast virgins mated from the same colony..one was superceded late last year and that colony went into winter with a virgin..two other mated Queens are fairly gentle and doing well...the third one is pure evil and needs re Queening at some point..if i had killed all these mated Queens and bought in mated Queens i would have needlessly killed two good Queens.