Am I being greedy?

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Salamagundy

House Bee
Joined
Jul 7, 2011
Messages
159
Reaction score
2
Location
Carmarthenshire
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
10
At the last inspection on Sunday my strongest hive (a national) looked like this: super with 9 frames, four new ones now drawn but empty, five old ones filling nicely (albeit with mostly dandelion nectar...); top brood box bees in 11 seams, wall-to-wall brood on 10 frames, two charged queen cells on frame 5, one charged queen cell on frame 6; bottom brood box: bees in 9 seams, brood on 5 frames.

My plan today was to split as follows (but it poured with rain, giving me the chance to come to the forum to ask advice...):

Queen, a frame of brood, a frame of stores and a good number of nurse bees into a dummied-down brood box containing 5 frames in total

Top brood box to stay on the original site with one queen cell and the super.

Bottom brood box (which contains a lot of stores) to another stand with one queen cell.

As the queen is so prolific (to me as a newbie at least) I thought it would be a good idea to try and get three colonies as a way of increasing the overall quality of my stock . I have enough kit at the moment because all the others are so far behind!

I'd be very grateful for any comments or suggestions before I go back again tomorrow.
 
The box on the original site will build additional queen cells if there are larvae of the right age and you risk them throwing a cast swarm. Its more usual to put the old queen on the original site with minimal brood so she receives the flying bees and is then made up similarly to a swarm, hence artificial swarm.
 
The box on the original site will build additional queen cells if there are larvae of the right age and you risk them throwing a cast swarm. Its more usual to put the old queen on the original site with minimal brood so she receives the flying bees and is then made up similarly to a swarm, hence artificial swarm.

Thanks MBC - I see the logic of what you are saying.

My thought was that the hive on the original site would have most bees and brood, plus returning foragers and stay strong so that the chance of getting honey from that hive would be better. (Don't think any of the other hives are going to do much....) If I checked for further queen cells in five days, say, and knocked them all down, leaving only the original cell, would that prevent cast swarms?

Also, re swarm make-up: I seem to remember reading somewhere (maybe the WBKA doc?) that a swarm is made up mostly of nurse bees. I'll see if I can find the reference.
 
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Thanks MBC - I see the logic of what you are saying.

My thought was that the hive on the original site would have most brood, plus returning foragers and stay strong so that the chance of getting honey from that hive would be better. (Don't think any of the other hives are going to do much....) If I checked for further queen cells in five days, say, and knocked them all down, leaving only the original cell, would that prevent cast swarms?

Yes, but why not keep the queen laying as much as possible and combine with one of the new ones once they're mated to get a really strong colony for getting honey ?
The colony on the original site will continue working hard if it has the laying queen plus all the flying bees whereas they seem to go into a lull if left with a queen cell until the virgin gets mated.
 
Yes, but why not keep the queen laying as much as possible and combine with one of the new ones once they're mated to get a really strong colony for getting honey ?
The colony on the original site will continue working hard if it has the laying queen plus all the flying bees whereas they seem to go into a lull if left with a queen cell until the virgin gets mated.

Thanks - I'll place the hives as you suggest.

BTW, the reference to swarm make-up was from M.W. Shaw's paper on the uses of a Snelgrove board. He says a lot more about the differences between natural and artificial swarms than I remembered. Maybe I should let them leave and then chase them down the hedgerow!
 

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