Split or breed?

[bpmurray]

I have three strong hives on double brood. I had planned on grafting tomorrow when the temps are supposed to hit 20C (hard to believe, I know), but I wonder if it makes more sense to split the hives now and let the Q- halves grow their own, or if I should wait until the new queens are laying and then split with a new queen ready to pop unto the Q- halves.

Grafting tomorrow will give me laying queens around the first week in June, but I'm afraid that they'll make swarm preparations before that, particularly one hive that has 14 frames of brood across the 2 boxes. Also, if I split tomorrow It'll probably have minimal impact on the honey production, particularly since a previously unnoticed field of OSR popped into flower yesterday only 800m from the apiary.

So the question is: should I split now, or wait until I have a queen to start laying immediately in the new hive?

 

[B+.]

So the question is: should I split now, or wait until I have a queen to start laying immediately in the new hive?

If you split before you have a queen to head the colony, they will attempt to make emergency queen cells from any larvae they have. This takes time and carries a certain amount of risk that they will remain unmated or fail to perform. You will also forgo any honey crop that you might otherwise get.
Why not buy in a mated queen that is ready to go for the nuc?

 

[bpmurray]

If you split before you have a queen to head the colony, they will attempt to make emergency queen cells from any larvae they have. This takes time and carries a certain amount of risk that they will remain unmated or fail to perform. You will also forgo any honey crop that you might otherwise get.
Why not buy in a mated queen that is ready to go for the nuc?

They'll create emergency cells - why should that be an issue? The fantasy that they'll result in poor quality queens has been well and truly debunked long ago - my strongest hive is led by a queen from an emergency cell.

I don't think it'll be much of an impact on the honey crop since they should have a laying queen in a month's time. A pagden split would definitely seriously impact the crop, but that's not what I'm planning on doing.

Anyway there are no AMM queens available in Ireland now - around here it's considered tantamount to heresy to do that unless in really exceptional circumstances, and I wouldn't import one under any circumstances.

 

[foghornleghorn]

They'll create emergency cells - why should that be an issue? The fantasy that they'll result in poor quality queens has been well and truly debunked long ago - my strongest hive is led by a queen from an emergency cell.

I don't think it'll be much of an impact on the honey crop since they should have a laying queen in a month's time. A pagden split would definitely seriously impact the crop, but that's not what I'm planning on doing.

Anyway there are no AMM queens available in Ireland now - around here it's considered tantamount to heresy to do that unless in really exceptional circumstances, and I wouldn't import one under any circumstances.

If you keep the hives together until youve laying queens you should do better with honey and increase

 

[misterbee82]

The advice you've been receiving is excellent advice, I myself would leave the hive alone, a field that big will yield a lot of pollen and nectar, which in turn will help with honey which will help with everything from brood to eventually overwintering next winter. You're playing with fire if you do a split now, and you'll probably see a sizeable impact not too long into the future if you do.

 

[oliver90owner]

They'll create emergency cells - why should that be an issue? The fantasy that they'll result in poor quality queens has been well and truly debunked long ago -

A typical one year beekeeper speaking? Far too many inexperienced beeks do that and finish up with a short term or runty queen because they know no better. Yes, emergency queens can be good, but their production needs a little more thought than just letting the bees get on with it.

 

[bpmurray]

They'll create emergency cells - why should that be an issue? The fantasy that they'll result in poor quality queens has been well and truly debunked long ago -

A typical one year beekeeper speaking? Far too many inexperienced beeks do that and finish up with a short term or runty queen because they know no better. Yes, emergency queens can be good, but their production needs a little more thought than just letting the bees get on with it.

This is the myth to which I refer. Of course, uncontrolled emergency QCs can result in scrub queens but, believe it or not, the bees know what they're doing and have managed to survive as a species using emergency cells for a long, long time.

Dave Cushman describes the issues well: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/emergencycells.html - if they build emergency cells from the youngest larvae, which is most likely when the queen suddenly vanishes, they will be exactly the right sort of queen you want. Do beeks buy in queens for an AS? Of course not - it's based on emergency cells, albeit in a controlled manner.

 

[foghornleghorn]

This is the myth to which I refer. Of course, uncontrolled emergency QCs can result in scrub queens but, believe it or not, the bees know what they're doing and have managed to survive as a species using emergency cells for a long, long time.

Dave Cushman describes the issues well: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/emergencycells.html - if they build emergency cells from the youngest larvae, which is most likely when the queen suddenly vanishes, they will be exactly the right sort of queen you want. Do beeks buy in queens for an AS? Of course not - it's based on emergency cells, albeit in a controlled manner.

But how will you be sure the queens are properly fed?

 

[B+.]

But how will you be sure the queens are properly fed?

For whatever reason, I think he's already decided what he's going to do.

 

[For want of a better word]

Why not buy in a mated queen that is ready to go for the nuc?

Because there are no Amm queens available.. and the good man is not a heretic!

If I was in E Anglia/ Norfolk/ Bedfordshire I would be buying in some queens as there is one amazing mix of subspecies in the East and it is of no consequence to other beekeepers stock if a foreign non native beauty splashes it genes all over the place!

BUT Ireland has a fantastic Native honeybee that is productive, good tempered and suited for the local North Atlantic Temperate Maritime climatic conditions... and certainly does not want any foreign gene introgression!

Horses for courses!!

Yeghes da

 

[Hivemaker.]

Do beeks buy in queens for an AS? Of course not - it's based on emergency cells, albeit in a controlled manner.

Yes they do buy in a queen sometimes, or use one of their own mated queens from a mating nuc.

And no, they should be based on proper queen cells, layed in by the queen when a small queen cup.

 

[Eyeman]

Dave Cushman describes the issues well: http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/emergencycells.html - if they build emergency cells from the youngest larvae, which is most likely when the queen suddenly vanishes, they will be exactly the right sort of queen you want. Do beeks buy in queens for an AS? Of course not - it's based on emergency cells, albeit in a controlled manner.

If you rear emergency queen cells by deliberately removing the queen then a number of interesting observations can be made:
1. If you harvest the QC 10 days after the Queen was removed then some QC will still be a day or so from being capped.
2. If you place the QC's in an incubator and time the queen's emergence then some will take 16 days to emerge (from removal of the queen)

This indicates that the bees are not rushing around taking any old larvae to make into a queen. They are in fact allowing eggs to hatch and then using those larvae to rear queens with.
I agree with Dave Cushman that this is the probable reason why the age of emergency queens cells is staggered.

 

[B+.]

Why not buy in a mated queen that is ready to go for the nuc?

Because there are no Amm queens available..

This is one of the reasons I left BiBBA. There was lots of talk about saving native honeybees, but, they weren't available at any price.

 

[Cussword]

This is one of the reasons I left BiBBA. There was lots of talk about saving native honeybees, but, they weren't available at any price.

If they are anything like the nuc I was sold last year, you can keep 'em.
I walked over 100 yards away and I still had plenty of company.

9 stings in 2 visits. If I didn't love bees I would deal with them on a permanent basis, but I do, so I won't.
.

 

[B+.]

If they are anything like the nuc I was sold last year, you can keep 'em.
I walked over 100 yards away and I still had company.

9 stings in 2 visits. If I didn't love bees I would deal with them on a permanent basis, but I do, so I won't.
.

If there had been a proper breeding programme to minimize the undesirable behaviour and maximize the desirable characteristics, it would have been something I could have worked with, but, all I heard was talk about a mythical native bee that I never saw. The only wild bees that I have seen are unacceptably aggressive hybrids

 

[Cussword]

If there had been a proper breeding programme to minimize the undesirable behaviour and maximize the desirable characteristics, it would have been something I could have worked with, but, all I heard was talk about a mythical native bee that I never saw. The only wild bees that I have seen are unacceptably aggressive hybrids

I'll go along with that.

 

[bpmurray]

There's actually a lot of work being done in Ireland for the AMM - perhaps the issue is that the lineage in the UK has been too mixed with all the imports. Mine can be tetchy if I annoy them, e.g. like today, removing the cells and then opening again to insert the grafts, but no attempt to sting, merely hovering around keeping an eye on things.

Anyway, to the original issue: as it happens, the grafting went well, but the hives in the other apiary, both of which were bursting with bees a week ago, have no fresh eggs. They have sealed brood, and one has almost sealed larvae, and I couldn't see the queens and there were no QCs. My guess is that they've gone off laying because of a lack of flow - hopefully the warm weather this week will fix that.