increase by split Wally Shaw

[Hivemaker.]

Sorry to hijack slightly but was also reading this booklet, Quick question. If you are making up a nuc and want to use brood and bees from multiple colonies, Is it a minimum of three colonies to avoid fighting? I cannot remember! cheers

Yes, three or more.

 

[beecology]

Every one do as they do. Adult people in question. But it is vain to claim that you get from emergency cells as good as from grafted.

Now we talk only about queen's ability to lay. But rearing queens is something else than that.

You may rear one queen from your hive, but do not advertise that it is as good as selected and grafted. To select a mother hive from 10 hives than from 200 hives.

And the rearing queens is so expencive operation, that queens are not free at all
If you rear one queen, quality will be poor and price is huge when you calculate as a loss of honey yield.

Best way is buy a laying quality queen, and make a nuc. That is scientific.

I didn't intend to start a dispute with the thread, but I was mocked in my 1st year when discussing emergency queens. Wally Shaw agrees with what I was told when I started by a beek with 65 or more years of experience.

Ultimately, when a simple method of SMALL SCALE increase is desired, the method described is totally acceptable and the queen raised will have been the best to be selected by the bees (one of a number of qc's) - sometimes bees know best?

Also, a simple 1-2 split can increase honey yield (2 hives over 1), reduce swarming (again loss of honey crop) and give security over a single hive situation.

I am open to learning more about queen rearing in the future, and Finman, you will no doubt give great advice on that subject. And for the record, I have ordered a top quality queen (Buckfast) from Hivemaker/Exmoor bees and I cant wait for her to arrive.

 

[Anduril]

Every one do as they do. Adult people in question. But it is vain to claim that you get from emergency cells as good as from grafted.

Now we talk only about queen's ability to lay. But rearing queens is something else than that.

You may rear one queen from your hive, but do not advertise that it is as good as selected and grafted. To select a mother hive from 10 hives than from 200 hives.

And the rearing queens is so expencive operation, that queens are not free at all
If you rear one queen, quality will be poor and price is huge when you calculate as a loss of honey yield.

Best way is buy a laying quality queen, and make a nuc. That is scientific.

 

[Dan Job]

How sucessful have everyone splits and Swarm control using the wally shaw MSII been? I started two colonies off yesterday evening but concerned that the flying bees may not split from the queen right side with the weather being so bad today.?!
Cheers Dan

 

[Erichalfbee]

I've done only one. I put the brood hive too near the AS and didn't bleed the foragers off. The queen cells were NOT eliminated by the bees. However, they did not swarm and when I went back in 10 days later HM was still there ....and a few emerging virgins, so all not lost. She was repatriated and laying as before......so that bit worked.
I will do another.
Jimmys mum has done some too.

 

[Jimmys Mum]

I've done only one. I put the brood hive too near the AS and didn't bleed the foragers off. The queen cells were NOT eliminated by the bees. However, they did not swarm and when I went back in 10 days later HM was still there ....and a few emerging virgins, so all not lost. She was repatriated and laying as before......so that bit worked.
I will do another.
Jimmys mum has done some too.

Yes, I've done 6.
All gone like clockwork so far except one.

Two were done vertically with a snelgrove board (now like tower blocks!) and four done using a new position about 6 feet away. Not sure what happened in the failed one but after repatriating the clipped queen, she laid up half a frame or so and then vanished, possibly a swarm attempt (?) unless I unwittingly squashed her on inspecting?.. There were some very young larvae and a few eggs, no queen cells. I checked a few days later and they had started to raise emergency cells.

The process is far from over though. I have a few virgins waiting to mate or possibly just mated, and a few more due to emerge soon.
My surprise was how quickly the swarm hive rebuilds after the queen has been repatriated, especially as I used foundation and not drawn comb. And how full the supers have become!

My hope is to reunite for the main flow - they will be large colonies - and hope that the new queen pheromone stops them from taking off again later in the season.

 

[Dan Job]

Sucess on the vertical ones? The two I've started are vertical. With entrance rotated 90deg, I think I'll pop by my apiary tomorrow and see if there are many/any fliers returning to the new entrance position. Might also peak in and see if they have torn down the QCs.
Dan

 

[Jimmys Mum]

Sucess on the vertical ones? The two I've started are vertical. With entrance rotated 90deg, Dan

Yes my vertical ones have all worked ok so far. In fact I just remembered I have 3 verticals, one at another apiary too. Same set up as you describe and with 3 supers separating the brood boxes. One has a queen emerged on the 11th, one about now and the other wont emerge for another week or so. All colonies tore down their queen cells.

I'm not sure I'll do any more verticals unless I get short of kit and have no choice. I run 14x12s and lifting them off the stack is not easy. I'm just glad my husband has a bee suit and is happy to assist! Also I'm close to OSR which is starting to go green now. Compared to how it's normally done, it's going to be a right faff checking the supers underneath the parent hive 'set up', putting clearer boards on and removing the supers before the honey starts to crystallise in the combs.

 

[Dan Job]

Well they are most definitely not playing by the book! Hive 2 had more bees going in and out of the queen right split than the part with the original hive floor/entrance. And had continued to draw and even cap one QC. Luckily found the queen on the next frame so popped her in my 'inspection holding box' while I decided what to do.
With the worry that the queen right split still had the swarm impulse and that many of the flying bees called that entrance 'home' I decided to take the emergency QCs from the bottom box pop them in the top box and relocate the queen down stairs. So I've essentially ended up with a pagden but with only half of the flying bees! Comments welcome.

On the plus note the second colony which I started seems to have been more of sucess. Only a few flyers returning to the queen right side, queen at home and laying. Stage 2 planned for next weekend.

So the lesson is don't expect the flying bees to successfully bleed off if the split is done in the evening and a bad day follows. (granted with a proper snelgrove board this could have been easily fixed but I was on a simple split board.)

Added bonus drove through a haze of bees on the way to out apiary, stopped on the way back to find a decent melon sized cluster. Now covering 3 frames in a brood box on my allotment dummied down to 5.

 

[Finman]

.
Remember, it is easy to split the hive, but at same time you will spoil your honey yield.

You may avoid swarming, but reason is that hive is too weak to swarm or make surplus.

To get honey from hive goes so, that colony will be nursed to the state that it produce surplus to supers. That build up takes 6-8 weeks time.
With bold splitting time calculation begins from start.

It is July when you calculate 8 weeks forward from this day. It means that hive is not able to get surplus in before July. Hive just grows.

 

[Dan Job]

Agreed, my agenda is slightly different to the post title, The plan is to re-combine in several weeks time as soon as the swarm fever has died down.

 

[Finman]

I'm not disputing the idea of grafting. It doesn't suit everyone and to have a variety of techniques allows everyone to fit into their comfort zone.

How science supports everyone's comfort zone.... This is real forum style

 

[Anduril]

It is not science supporting everyone's comfort zone. Bees have survived without human science for 100 million years. Grafting has been around for 100 years how have the bees ever survived without that technique. The vanity of man believing he can do better than bees.

 

[Finman]

It is not science supporting everyone's comfort zone. Bees have survived without human science for 100 million years. Grafting has been around for 100 years how have the bees ever survived without that technique. The vanity of man believing he can do better than bees.

Beekeepers are adult humans. They do what they do, and most give a ship to science. And in more important things adult must take care themselves without science.