How to transfer a brood split into an off-site hive

[ugcheleuce]

Hello everyone

This question is beekeeping 101.

Despite having been on a beekeeping course and gigabytes of e-books, I'm still a little uncertain about how to transfer a brood split into an off-site hive (about 10 km further). In other words, I'd like to take a frame of brood and a frame of honey and some bees from my one hive and transfer it to my hive that is somewhere else. I can't move the hive itself, so I'll have to put the frames and bees into a nuc box temporarily during transport.

My questions are: When is the best time of day to put the bees in the nuc box? Should I try to put the bees into the new hive on the same day, or should I leave them in the nuc box for at least a day? Should I put the nuc box where the new hive will be, and wait for them to draw out a frame or two, before transferring the frames to the new hive (placed in the position of the nuc box), or should I just dump them into the new hive immediately? Should I leave them in the new hive for a few days before opening it up, or should I open the hive fairly soon (same day/next day)?

Note that this is going to be a brood split, i.e. queenless. The idea is that they make their own queen, or that I introduce a new queen after 10 days.

Thanks
Samuel

 

[REDWOOD]

First you need to get it clear what you intend to do, if you want them to build QC then your brood will have to contain eggs, If you want to buy in a queen then your brood will be sealed or nearly sealed so they can't make emergency QC's

What ever you decide about your queen you can put them in a hive as long as you use dummy boards with insulation both sides, make sure your entrance is reduced to a minimum size.
some good info here;
http://www.wbka.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Beekeeping-Making-Increase-WAG.pdf

 

[ugcheleuce]

If you want them to build QC then your brood will have to contain eggs; If you want to buy in a queen then your brood will be sealed or nearly sealed so they can't make emergency QC's.

Thanks. The method I've learnt last year is to give them brood frames with eggs even if you want to put a new queen in, and then you'd have to break the queen cells on day 10, which is also the day on which you put the new queen in. But what you're saying makes sense -- one can simply give them frames without any eggs and put the queen in on the same day. I think the idea with the method we've learnt was that the colony becomes hopelessly queenless and theoretically accepts the new queen more readily.

What is the official English term for what I called a "brood split" (as opposed to a split that puts the queen in the split)?

Samuel

 

[REDWOOD]

Whenever you split there will be a queen in one part of the split but it might be right to say " making a nucleus"

 

[Midland Beek]

Note that this is going to be a brood split, i.e. queenless. The idea is that they make their own queen, or that I introduce a new queen after 10 days.

Do not listen to anyone who says that bees will successfully make a new queen in the manner you speak of, and if any book suggests this method cut it up and put it in your smoker. Destroy any queen cells they make so as to make them hopelessly queenless, and then introduce a new queen. But a queenless split containing one good queen cell is different. A good queen cell is one not reared under the emergency impulse.

 

[jd101k2000]

Hi Midland Beek... because I want to learn, can you say why you think that the method suggested is bad?

Thanks.

 

[JEP]

The method is ok if you buy a queen. But queen cells should only ever be raised in the strongest possible colony so that the larvae are well fed and produce decent queens. On a small scale if you want to rear a queen for your split you would do better to wait unit queen cells are started in your main hive (i.e. your swarming time) and then destroy all but one large one and remove the old queen with some frames of brood to your new site. On a side note if you have less than say 10 or 20 hives there is no point in having them in more than one location.

 

[ugcheleuce]

Do not listen to anyone who says that bees will successfully make a new queen in the manner you speak of, and if any book suggests this method cut it up and put it in your smoker.

The beekeeping giving the beekeeping course that I'm doing this year does it all the time. He only has about 450 hives, so maybe he's a bit inexperienced, but I'm willing to follow his lead in this year at least.

Do you know of any studies or resources about the strength of rescue queens versus non-rescue queens? It makes sense that a queen that was created from a larvae would be weaker than a queen that was created from scratch, but by how much is she weaker?

 

[Erichalfbee]

AND yet there is so much about "emergency" queens being perfectly OK. The bees wouldn't raise substandard queens and let them emerge to mate. Studies have shown that these queens have a full complement of ovarioles.
It has been postulated that it is the quality of the retinue who accompany...indeed knowing the lie of the land, direct a virgin to a good drone congregation area so that the queen is well mated that is more important.
I have a drawing from a Wally Shaw talk depicting how the bees restructure a worker cell to grow an emergency queen.

 

[ugcheleuce]

AND yet there is so much about "emergency" queens being perfectly OK.

A similar view is held by Roger Patterson from Dave Cushman's site:
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/emergencycells.html

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

AND yet there is so much about "emergency" queens being perfectly OK. The bees wouldn't raise substandard queens and let them emerge to mate. Studies have shown that these queens have a full complement of ovarioles.
It has been postulated that it is the quality of the retinue who accompany...indeed knowing the lie of the land, direct a virgin to a good drone congregation area so that the queen is well mated that is more important.
I have a drawing from a Wally Shaw talk depicting how the bees restructure a worker cell to grow an emergency queen.

Wally believes there is no difference between an emergency queen and a
'properly' raised queen. I think the difference is, if a queen fails (meaning there won't be eggs from that day)then as the colony works to get a new one, there aren't that many newly emerged fresh nurse bees available to feed the queen larvae with copious royal jelly. with a 'split' you should have BIAS with the Q- side with new bees emerging every day to tend the 'emergency' queen . The drawing out of the emergency queen cell is a bit of a red herring - Wally is of the opinion that the size etc. of the cell is not really any different.

 

[alanf]

I did hear one theory about why emergency queens have a reputation for being poor that makes sense. To me anyhow. I can't recall exactly where I heard it first but I have heard similar arguments several times.

What matters is that the best queen larvae need maximum attention from lots of nurse bees and super abundant feeding. When a colony is dwindling and in poor health anyway, a dead or removed queen will result in emergency queen cells. Often in greater numbers than the existing nurse bees can cope with and perhaps at a less than ideal time of year. Those queens will be poor because the bees are not getting the best feeding as larvae or they may struggle to mate. They are not poor because they are emergency production, but the reputation sticks. If emergency queen cells are prompted by the well timed removal or separation of a queen then the larvae are subsequently in a strong colony that can feed them well, then the queens are as good as any. As I read it, the basis of the Cloake method and other division techniques.

 

[Finman]

The method is ok if you buy a queen. But queen cells should only ever be raised in the strongest possible colony so that the larvae are well fed and produce decent queens.

That is the right and basic in queen rearing.

If you rear your own queen from beginning, it takes almost 2 brood cycle time compared to buyed laying queen. And it is very expencive to rear couple of own queens.

 

[Finman]

Emergy queens are mostly smaller than normal queens. Often some of them are same size as worker when they are reared in small nucs.

And the reason is that all worker larvae are fed its first 3 days with royal jelly. Do workers start to rear queen from 1 or 3 days old larva? How many feeding days they then have out of 5?

Worker larva and queen larva is fed 5 days and then it is capped with extra food milk. Queen larva grows 1700 fold and worker larva 1000 fold from egg weigh.

If you look emerged emergency cell, it is allways empty and normal queen cell has lots of extra jelly. Emergengy cell seldom gets normal amount of food.

The oldest larvae emerge first and kill other cells. Their feeding time is shortest and jelly store too small.
I use swarming cells in queen rearing. I change the larva.

I have seen hunreds of emergency queens during my life and I kill them all. I kill supercede queens too, because they are not selected from best hives. It is not good idea to take daugter from a queen which has something wrong.

.

 

[Finman]

Emergy queens are mostly smaller than normal queens. Often some of them are same size as worker when they are reared in small nucs.

And the reason is that all worker larvae are fed its first 3 days with royal jelly.
Worker larva and queen larva is 5 days and then it is capped. Queen larva grows 1700 fold and worker larva 1000 fold.

If you look emergency cell, it is allways empty and normal queen cell has lots of extra jelly. Emergengy cell seldom gets normal amount of food.

The oldest larvae emerge first and kill other cells. Their feeding time is shortest and jelly store too small.
I use swarming cells in queen rearing. I change the larva.

I have seen hunreds of emergency queens during my life and I kill them all.

.

 

[Finman]

.
One thing more.
When a larva is ready to become a pupa, it is quite big.
During pupa prosessing the brood looses 30% of its weight.
That is one thing why queen larva must have maximum feeding.

 

[Finman]

if you have less than say 10 or 20 hives there is no point in having them in more than one location.

You surely get weak yields with that system.
I keep only 3 max 4 hives in one point. Then I get even over 100 kg average yields in one pont. Best hives have brought 200 kg.

Good yields come from good pastures. I believe that uk hss poor yields and especially London area has poor yields because there are too much colonies to share the yield.

Bees have unlimited pasture 2 weeks on **** field but what they do the rest of summer 5 months? As I have written my hives bring in 3 days 15kg honey and 50 kg in a week when pasture is good. But at same time another place gives nothing.
Think about 20 hives at same pasture which gives nothing, and summer is over. Then you had eggs in same basket.

 

[JEP]

My apiaries are located in the Peak District in England so not perhaps an area of ideal bee pasture although there are lots of trees and hedgerows and most apiaries are within flying range of heather moors for a decent late season crop. I find that 15 colonies per apiary is about the optimum for me although obviously less colonies per site would get a slightly better crop it would also involve more money spent on fuel, site rent, time involved in working the bees, mowing the apiaries etc. Anyway I accept that perhaps I overstated the ideal apiary size but the point I was trying to make was that if I had just 2 colonies it would make sense to keep them in the same place.

Going back to the queen rearing there are plenty of scientific studies that prove that better queens are reared from the youngest larvae or eggs and that well fed queen larvae produce better queens. This is the first, most basic and most important part of rearing queens. Of course after this the selection of breeder queens is important as is flooding apiaries with drones from selected queens but this is not relevant to beekeepers with just a few hives.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I'm out of this thread if we are going to be subjected to his usual blather. it is the beginner's section after all

 

[ugcheleuce]

I'm out of this thread if we are going to be subjected to [Finman's] usual blather. It is the beginner's section, after all.

Although I can't do much with the raw information from Finman's posts at this time, you have to admit that his posts have been the most comprehensive on numerical data in this thread thus far.

Going back to the queen rearing there are plenty of scientific studies that prove that (1) better queens are reared from the youngest larvae or eggs and that (2) well fed queen larvae produce better queens.

All valid points, thanks.

My original question was not about queen rearing, however, but about the best procedure for establishing the split on the new site. We can talk about the merits of doing brood splits (or: emergency-style queen rearing) but the fact is that that is what I intend to do and I just need to know what is the best way of doing it, if the final destination of the split is elsewhere.