At what point can i split

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

wightbees

Queen Bee
Beekeeping Sponsor
Joined
Feb 18, 2010
Messages
2,738
Reaction score
31
Location
Isle Of Wight
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
How long is a piece of string
As i know have one hive bee-smillie i want to split at some point to make another.
Can you give me some pointers at what the hive stage should be before trying this.
At the moment i have a mixed hive type, lower BB 18" x 12" and on top is my MD .It has a ply cut out so as to make the 2 fit and what i thought was when the MD looks like it's getting filled up with brood and stores go for a split and let the bees sort out a new queen.
Would this work
 
The queen produced by the method you describe will be an "emergency" queen.
I say "emergency" because the bees discover they are queenless and produce queen cells from eggs and larvae up to 3 days old. The egg cells will be fed royal jelly from day 1 but the 3 day old larvae from day 3 only and as they emerge first one of then will be your new queen. She may be brilliant but she may not.

Better IMO to let them build up keep them on the two brood boxes and as soon as they start to build swarm cells split. Alternatively buy a mated queen and introduce to the queenless box. Good luck. Mike
 
Splitting and letting the bees sort out a new queen is an option but not the best by far. The new queen may well be a 'scrub queen' and neither be productive nor long-lasting.

You would be better inducing supercedure queen cells before splitting, when the colony is sufficiently strong. Queen cells produced in a large colony is far better than in a small colony of few frames.

Depending on when you might be doing this leads me to suggest you also consider the possible wasp situation in your area. Early, strong splits are less likely to be troubled with wasp attack.

Regards, RAB
 
Ok i will hold on for abit and see if they make any Q cells .
I have not seen much in the way of wasp at the moment.
thanks for you replies
 
not seen much in the way of wasp

You won't have, but we don't know when your colony will be ready to split. New beeks are notoriously over-eager to split, or exagerate the amount of brood that is actually present, etc. One strong colony is far better than two weaklings.

Regards, RAB
 
I'm with RAB on this one, don't split too soon or you will find they will take the whole season to build up and then just be strong enough for winter, to split I recon on a minimum of 8 BS full frames of brood, I normally split only if I have 10 BS frames full of brood, that way the colonies will be large enough to build up quickly and if all goes well, have a reasonable crop from each.

If you split too early, you may ruin your chance of any crop.

Patience is required here, and don't worry, just listen carefully and the bees will tell you when it's time.

Enzo.
 
lets get them in your new box, before you split...your IOW winter weather may be kind enough for you to get away with it, so if you want too take a gamble

assuming your original hive was bubbling then once they are going up into the new md box and queen is up there, i would take a egg brood frames one one capped brood without a queen, some stores and shake one frames of bees into a md box packed out to reduced it to half size...and feed feed .you only loose honey, you can re combineif it fails...and scfrub queen...kill the first born....ie destroy the first capped q cells, so they are well fed queens than scrubs...wasps...well anyhive can be attacked by wasps in augustt..small entrance and jam jar wasp traps..and hope they find the tourist on the beach and easier target

winter...wrap it in 6" OF polystyrene
 
I checked them today, i went through the whole hive for the first time :willy_nilly: they don't seem to have any intentions of moving up into my MD . They are all happy enough working with what they have got :banghead::banghead:
I removed about 8 QC although i think they are old ones left there by the looks of them, but took them out just to make sure.
Also seen the Queen marked Green (last years queen i was told)
Pollen coming in and the bees seem active enough.

Seen one bee with K wing is this a one off or something to worry about.
It was the only one i could see like it but thought i would mention it.


Do you think it would help to give them some feed ?
The frames are about 12" deep and 11 frames in total . The bees are all over about 6 maybe 7 of them. 1 at the end is totaly empty and the next one in they have started on .There is 1 frame with Drone cells on one side about Half i would say. There is pollen stored but it is coming in all the time i am watching them.

I am now thinking leave them alone for 13 days and see if they start to draw out the box i have put on and start to move up.

Ideas and help please and no intention of splitting now.
The bees seem happy with me poking about and i would love another hive of this nature but i need to build these up .
 
I removed about 8 QC although i think they are old ones left there by the

I am now thinking leave them alone for 13 days and see if they start to draw out the box i have put on and start to move up.

Ideas and help please and no intention of splitting now.
The bees seem happy with me poking about and i would love another hive of this nature but i need to build these up .

check them in 6-7 days after you knocked down the queen cells, as by day 8 you could loose half your bees in aswarm, if you have any,that a worry. ie if they are old QC then you would not have a marked 2009 queen,,,she would have flown when the QC was capped ( 8 days)

i expect they are play cups....but if they make new Qcells with grubs in, you better split by making a artifuical swarm, so regulary inspection at 6/7 day intervals until we tell you to stop

try 2 ltrs of 1:1 sugar water but remember it will get mixed with honey in the brood box, so stop as soon as they need a super

i would take the two undrawn frames afrom the MD..repalce with a dummy frame or polystyrene in a poly bag...this will force them up, as lack of space
 
Last edited:
Thanks MM
Is there a way i could make a quick dummy up out of the frame in the brood box.
Like put a bag over it or somthing, as it's a big frame and i would have to go there and messure up then go back again and fit it.
 
Thanks MM
Is there a way i could make a quick dummy up out of the frame in the brood box.
Like put a bag over it or somthing, as it's a big frame and i would have to go there and messure up then go back again and fit it.

yes just put it in a poly bag, and gaffer tape it on top...expect it would work
 
Back
Top