hive splits

[Chris B]

.
loose the honey yield.

Average yield per hive in a good year is only 30lb here Finman.
Not so much to lose.

(The reason it's so low is swarmy bees and poor swarm control - maybe you can even improve honey yield by making early splits?)

 

[Outlander]

.
You are one hive owner and a beginner. Try to learn first to nurse a hive.

With splitting you only spoil your hive.

.look later what are your ideas.

When you have 5 boxes full of bees, then you may do one slpit. If you make more, you loose the honey yield.

Finny if he's managed to get his one hive through up to now he must be doing something right.

 

[Finman]

Average yield per hive in a good year is only 30lb here Finman.
Not so much to lose.splits?)

then you may do what ever. Who cares?

i understand. And you keep your 300 hives, storehouses and trucks for fun.

 

[oliver90owner]

Finny if he's managed to get his one hive through up to now he must be doing something right.

On this occasion I happen to agree with Finny.

In my second year I made too many increases from four colonies and paid the price as there were a lot of winter losses around that winter and mine suffered more so.

In a poor year our 'one hive owners' could well heed the advice to increase conservatively.

My umpteen splits from the one colony were well backed up with other strong colonies to help out later, even though that help was not called upon. I split that colony because the queen had the potential to produce some offspring with good traits. Each had a large queen cell after encouraging the colony to go that way. I doubt that the OP would achieve that success starting with the one hive. Further, the queens were not all wanted for increase (although they could easily all have made colonies strong enough to over-winter).

Little problems like wasps can spoil the over-stretched beek's aspirations. Take Finman's advice and proceed cautiously, taking due care with any decisions at the time.

 

[tonybloke]

has no one else noticed that the OP uses a TBH?
perhaps a few folk would like to rethink their answers?

 

[oliver90owner]

perhaps a few folk would like to rethink their answers?

Doesn't make any difference to my posts, but reading post #10 is interesting if the hive is a TBH?

 

[Chris B]

then you may do what ever. Who cares?

i understand. And you keep your 300 hives, storehouses and trucks for fun.

No my average is a lot higher.

 

[Finman]

.
I have seen in this forum when guys try to nurse 2 frame and 4 frame swarms and they have excluders and ask when to rear own queens and when to put super.

Other guys encourage continue fine system. it seems that they do not understand either the basics .

What is the idea of forum: destroy colony build up and tell how not at least you get no honey or just social communications.

What is a normal hive start: it is one box full of bees and frames full of brood.
After 6 weeks this hive is able to forage surplus honey.

Okay, those brood emerge and it is time to add chimney colonies. The rest of hive cannot gather surplus honey for 2 months. So we have autumn. It is amazing if you get with system one box honey = 15 lbs or was it kilos.

How to hande this situation: you must have normal hives that you learn natural course of the colony. With that knowledge you may lead the hive. It is called beekeeping.

To do every trick what guys on forum advice to do, that may be called "hopeless case".
.

a

 

[yeogi75]

sorry tony bloke, i have national hive as i had to buy bees on frames so made hive to accommodate them, changed cp to reflect that.
finnman not concerned about honey, until i have adequate bees to be able to take honey from, due to poor summer colony has not built up as good as expected, and if we have bad winter and poor summer again i don't want to rely on one hive without back up pushing my luck, so want to split main hive to make two or three hives for next year, insurance relay.

 

[Outlander]

Finny if he's managed to get his one hive through up to now he must be doing something right.

On this occasion I happen to agree with Finny.

In my second year I made too many increases from four colonies and paid the price as there were a lot of winter losses around that winter and mine suffered more so.

In a poor year our 'one hive owners' could well heed the advice to increase conservatively.

My umpteen splits from the one colony were well backed up with other strong colonies to help out later, even though that help was not called upon. I split that colony because the queen had the potential to produce some offspring with good traits. Each had a large queen cell after encouraging the colony to go that way. I doubt that the OP would achieve that success starting with the one hive. Further, the queens were not all wanted for increase (although they could easily all have made colonies strong enough to over-winter).

Little problems like wasps can spoil the over-stretched beek's aspirations. Take Finman's advice and proceed cautiously, taking due care with any decisions at the time.

I didn't say I agreed with him about making so many splits from his one and only hive. I said that he must be doing something right to get them this far.

 

[yeogi75]

I didn't say I agreed with him about making so many splits from his one and only hive. I said that he must be doing something right to get them this far.

i agree, but when you only have one hive, even well learned beeks have lost hives in the past and had other hives to fall back on i can easly split into two hives and have built them up by winter but i wanted to know how many times you can split as three is better than one or even two if the go throu to winter full colony's

 

[yeogi75]

i am considering drstitsons example unless someone can give a better one
3 way walk away split
that will give me my original colony minus a few bees plus two smaller nuc splits q-

 

[Finman]

.
Walk away hive is pure nonsence. Really stupid to one hive owner.and you learn nothing from it.

So you want to have 3 hives next summer. That is wise and reaslistic idea.

The worst what you can do is to split in spring and destroy build up.
Second is split via swarm.

What i do and recommend to you is:

let the hive grow full size. In summer you take a frame on emerging brood. Then give food frame which has pollen and honey and then empty com or foundation.

What is a big problem : how to get drawn combs to this big fantasy? Andnext spring. To that you need a strong nectar foraging colony.

Then bye a laying queen.

Keep bees in a warm insulated nuc with normal frames.. let it bee 3 weeks and the nuc start to get its own workers.

Move the frames to 6 frame hive and take a frame of emerging bees again from big hive.

Now the nuc is quite strong and 4 frames brood.

You may make another nuc this way and let it build up.

When yield season is over, you may take from big hive capped brood and give to the nucs.
Now you have strong nucs which occupye a whole brood box.
These late summer brood are such that they do not work much and they will not winter,but they assist feeding nuc brood.

All these hives have power and time to make good winterers. Strong winterers are good spring builders.question is not only, do they go over winter alive.

When you want much bees, use douple brood.
But it depends, how good layer is your queen.

 

[Easy Beesy]

Remember the 3 beekeepers, one question, 5 answers scenario?
Why not split one hive into two then if all goes well split the two into two. If one does well just split that into two and let the other continue - might get both bees and honey that way.

I've learned with bees that plans made now will likely have to be changed depending on circumstances.

 

[Finman]

I've learned with bees that plans made now will likely have to be changed depending on circumstances.

that is very true

you may have a miserable hive in spring and perhasp you only start from beginning.
If the queen is misrable layer, things are not any better.

These are very propable alternatives and does not depend on how skillfull you are. It just happens.

To catch swarms is of course a good idea.

.

 

[Finman]

Remember the 3 beekeepers, one question, 5 answers scenario?

and humbug alternatives are best. Remember take such. Easy come easy go.

.

 

[yeogi75]

finman
I'm under no delusions that nature will do what nature wants, but i am chewing every thing over ready to adapt to the circumstances as they arrive and change as needed, obviously will go to double brood to get the extra bees to do splits.

 

[Outlander]

If I had just one hive I would prefer trying Finny's or Easy Beesy's way rather than 3 way split.

It's a real shame that Jackbee is no longer about he would have shown you how to split.

 

[mbc]

To catch swarms is of course a good idea.

.

Indeed !

 

[yeogi75]

.
Walk away hive is pure nonsence. Really stupid to one hive owner.and you learn nothing from it.

So you want to have 3 hives next summer. That is wise and reaslistic idea.

The worst what you can do is to split in spring and destroy build up.
Second is split via swarm.

What i do and recommend to you is:

let the hive grow full size. In summer you take a frame on emerging brood. Then give food frame which has pollen and honey and then empty com or foundation.

What is a big problem : how to get drawn combs to this big fantasy? Andnext spring. To that you need a strong nectar foraging colony.

Then bye a laying queen.

Keep bees in a warm insulated nuc with normal frames.. let it bee 3 weeks and the nuc start to get its own workers.

Move the frames to 6 frame hive and take a frame of emerging bees again from big hive.

Now the nuc is quite strong and 4 frames brood.

You may make another nuc this way and let it build up.

When yield season is over, you may take from big hive capped brood and give to the nucs.
Now you have strong nucs which occupye a whole brood box.
These late summer brood are such that they do not work much and they will not winter,but they assist feeding nuc brood.

All these hives have power and time to make good winterers. Strong winterers are good spring builders.question is not only, do they go over winter alive.

When you want much bees, use douple brood.
But it depends, how good layer is your queen.

finman would it be worth puting queen into nuc and buying queen for main hive as queen will be two years old bye spring leaving strongest queen to build up before winter