Downside of April splits

[Angularity]

I am thinking of pre-ordering two queens for early spring, with the intention of splitting my two biggest colonies. The plus side is that they should be big enough to exploit early season forage, without waiting for drone production. What downsides can I expect?

 

[Murox]

As long as the colonies are strong at splitting time there should be no major downside. The thing is where do you get a mated queen from very early on - overwintered ?? Forage and additional feed come to mind and just how early in spring would it be? Early pollen and nectar flow (artificial or not) makes bees.

 

[enrico]

Good luck with getting the queen's. I had to import them from Portugal this spring!!!
E

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

I would get your order in ASAP, my package and queen order went in end of July and queens were over subscribed then for May next year.

 

[madasafish]

I would get your order in ASAP, my package and queen order went in end of July and queens were over subscribed then for May next year.

One of the benefits of raising your own queens..

 

[Murox]

I am thinking of pre-ordering two queens for early spring, with the intention of splitting my two biggest colonies. The plus side is that they should be big enough to exploit early season forage, without waiting for drone production. What downsides can I expect?

Have a read of this https://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk/images/education/studynotes/MyBeekeepingYear.pdf has some interesting ideas.

 

[SDM]

One of the benefits of raising your own queens..

You have queens available at the beginning of May?

 

[madasafish]

You have queens available at the beginning of May?

err no..not this years but overwintered

 

[Hachi]

Have a read of this https://www.scottishbeekeepers.org.uk/images/education/studynotes/MyBeekeepingYear.pdf has some interesting ideas.

Back to matchsticks in November then

 

[Murox]

Interesting being the operative word. It is 10 years old.

 

[domino]

err no..not this years but overwintered

it is so nice to have a dozen spare queens in nucs.

 

[SDM]

it is so nice to have a dozen spare queens in nucs.

How are a.dozen queens in nucs spare when the nucs are worth £150 minimum?
And if neither the nucs nor queens are for sale, then in reality what use are those queens to you? You're not going to save a colony in spring if its queen failed over winter.

 

[domino]

How are a.dozen queens in nucs spare when the nucs are worth £150 minimum?
And if neither the nucs nor queens are for sale, then in reality what use are those queens to you? You're not going to save a colony in spring if its queen failed over winter.

I use then to replace poorly queens, breed new ones, boost weak colonies or give them to my beekeeping friends. I'm too lazy to sell anything.

 

[Hivemaker.]

You're not going to save a colony in spring if its queen failed over winter.

They can be given a new queen from a mini nuc in Feb/March if still strong enough.

 

[SDM]

They can be given a new queen from a mini nuc in Feb/March if still strong enough.

Cant say ive ever tried it, but if their queen had packed up about now( fairly typical time to stop laying) i wouldnt rate their chances even if they looked fairly strong.
Personally i wouldn't even bother uniting them.

 

[Hivemaker.]

Cant say ive ever tried it, but if their queen had packed up about now( fairly typical time to stop laying) i wouldnt rate their chances even if they looked fairly strong.

Usually get a few each year, three this year and they turned out to be good productive colonies, six last year... re queened three of them and shook the other three into one box and put a new queen straight in at the same time, all were okay and worth doing, the mini nucs just went on and produced their own queens.

 

[SDM]

Maybe, I'll get to try this year. Ive a few double kielers and double apideas going into winter.
Cant say ive had a failed/failing queen in spring for a couple of years. I was planning on just using them to restock mating nucs.
So thats 3-6 a year out of how many hundreds ?

 

[Walrus]

I am thinking of pre-ordering two queens for early spring, with the intention of splitting my two biggest colonies. The plus side is that they should be big enough to exploit early season forage, without waiting for drone production. What downsides can I expect?

When you say that the plus side of splitting early is that they can exploit early season forage, you don't mean to get a honey crop do you? I think it might be better to keep your colonies strong for the flow (OSR in Apr/May where you are?) and then split them afterwards.

Alternatively you could keep strong hives intact for the flow and split smaller (but still healthy) colonies & re-queen, because those smaller ones won't make a crop anyway.

 

[iann41]

Back in December, I ordered and paid for 10 queens. I picked them up 18th April. This was, if I remember, a week/fortnight after the terrible cold snap we had, and the weather was glorious and into the high teens. I made up ten nucs with just a single frame of brood and one of stores and left them to it. 9 out of 10 were successful and the one that wasn't only failed because I had missed a queen cell.

The weather this year had a lot to do with the success, as well as the quality of the queen.

It's always a gamble but as they say, "the early bird"

 

[mbc]

Colonies looking strong in November might be a long way away from looking good for splitting next April, they need to be well past the crossover point where more young bees emerge compared to old bees dying off. After twenty plus years at the game I still cannot predict with any accuracy when this will be five months in advance.