Splitting your first hive - how soon and how?

[Boston Bees]

Could you bullet point it, I've spent the day editing a very long document and I'm going word blind.

I have not used this specific method, and won't because it doesn't suit my apiary set up, but this is it:

Day 1
Put two nucs B1 and B2 to either side of colony A
Into each nuc place:
One frame of largely sealed brood with adhering bees from A
One frame of stores (can be from another colony, or from A)
Fill remaining space with drawn comb

Ensure the queen does NOT go into the nucs

Move parent colony A to another location in the apiary
Make sure A has enough stores, as it will lose its flying bees
Replace the removed brood frames from A with drawn comb - place in middle of brood nest (or on outside if using foundation)
Replace food frames in A

Foragers will divide between B1 and B2
If you see a clear preference for (say) B1, remove B1 for a few minutes so all foragers go into B2 for that time.
When you see equal fanning on both nucs, you are fine
This is important - you don't want one strong and one weak nuc

Give each of B1 and B2 a ripe QC

Day 4
Inspect to see if QC has emerged
If so, check she has intact wings
Remove any emergency QCs
Leave nuc alone for 2 weeks so she can get mated and start laying

Repeat
If desired, you can repeat the whole exercise with colony A
You can make 2 more nucs (C1 and C2) on the new location of A, and move A to a new location (back to its original location if you want) Then nucs B1 and B2 can be moved 3 feet to the side, allowing colony A to make 2 MORE nucs (D1 and D2)

Etc - up to 8 nucs can be made during a spring/summer
At the end of the summer colony A can be split in two if done carefully

 

[user 20297]

This is the problem with a lot of the split methods described online. You get to a certain stage and it says "insert a queen cell", and you go "OK, from where?"

Oops! That's where I come undone then. I was assuming that at some stage the bees would be providing me with a bundle of swarm cells and that the frames put into the nucs would carry one of them.

If that was the case, would such a nuc lack the critical mass to maintain itself until the queen was fully loaded and ready for action?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Just read through it, what a crock of..........
No wonder he's always whingeing about his poor quality queens - it's the way he's made them.
That's definitely one for the box of novelty items I thought were a good idea when wandering around the trade stands at a particularly boring convention.
He's turned a perfectly simple manipulation into the Forsyte saga.

 

[Boston Bees]

Oops! That's where I come undone then. I was assuming that at some stage the bees would be providing me with a bundle of swarm cells and that the frames put into the nucs would carry one of them.

If that was the case, would such a nuc lack the critical mass to maintain itself until the queen was fully loaded and ready for action?

Roger is describing pro-active splits (i.e. before a colony decides to swarm).

Doing splits AFTER you discover a hive full of QCs is different. Not quite sure I understand your question exactly, but you can still split the colony into nucs and ensure each has ONE ripe QC (or the queen). So you can still make nucs B1 and B2, but you would also have to deal with colony A in a manner which avoids it carrying on and swarming. We are back to wbka-booklet-english-PDF.pdf

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Oops! That's where I come undone then. I was assuming that at some stage the bees would be providing me with a bundle of swarm cells and that the frames put into the nucs would carry one of them.

If that was the case, would such a nuc lack the critical mass to maintain itself until the queen was fully loaded and ready for action?

Keep it simple, either go for a Demarree method which could allow you to split the top box into three (if you want them) nucs or follow Wally shaw's recipe for a 'walkaway split'

 

[user 20297]

Roger is describing pro-active splits (i.e. before a colony decides to swarm).

Doing splits AFTER you discover a hive full of QCs is different. Not quite sure I understand your question exactly, but you can still split the colony into nucs and ensure each has ONE ripe QC (or the queen)

Thank-you

Keep it simple, either go for a Demarree method which could allow you to split the top box into three (if you want them) nucs or follow Wally shaw's recipe for a 'walkaway split'

I will look them up. Thank-you.

 

[pargyle]

My problem is usually trying to stop them making increase not trying to get them to do it ...

Either wait until you see queen cells and do an artificial swarm - Pagden is pretty much idiot proof.

Or buy a nice queen, split the colony and introduce the new queen into the half that starts to make queen cells (after removing said queen cells.

Or look up JBM's Demaree method on here which is also pretty much foolproof.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I will look them up. Thank-you.

Dani gave you the link to Wally Shaw's leaflet in post #3
here's a Demarree guide for you
https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/demaree.46464/

 

[user 20297]

Not quite sure I understand your question exactly,

....you're not alone there. It's academic now, as better methods are being described. But I was wondering if a nuc with one frame of brood and a QC would have sufficient bees to maintain itself until the queen had emerged, mated etc?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

look up JBM's Demaree method on here which is also pretty much foolproof.

Well, it was written by one

 

[Boston Bees]

....you're not alone there. It's academic now, as better methods are being described. But I was wondering if a nuc with one frame of brood and a QC would have sufficient bees to maintain itself until the queen had emerged, mated etc?

His method does concern me regarding how thinly populated his nucs would be at first - they need to keep that brood warm. But they would get the flying bees as well as the single frame of nurse bees. So maybe OK. When I make nucs I make them "fat", but that's just me.

 

[domino]

If you're serious? I can, but it's already been done at the beginning of the document with a "quick start" description. I am sure to have incorporated errors trying to break it down into chunks.

1. Move the hive of the donor colony to a new location at a short distance behind and to the side of its original position.
2. Place two nuc boxes slightly to the front and to each side of the original position of the hive.
3. In each nuc put a good frame of "largely sealed brood" and a frame of stores from the hive.
4. Fill the vacant spaces in the nucs and original hive with drawn comb or at second best, with foundation.
5. Monitor the nucs as foragers return, and consider exchanging their positions to equalise bee numbers.

As previously observed, the full write-up is massively wordy and has many nuances and variations. This requires a colony at full strength, and in that case, Roger suggests that you may be able to repeat the process later in the season. You could then move the original colony back to its starting location and make up two more nucs which would be placed in front of and to the side of location number two.

I haven't attempted this method, but, all being well, I'm setup to do so this summer. I made the presumption that many people would have tried this.

Thanks, I mate queens in three frame nucs - basically, six frame nucs with one frame of brood, food and drawn comb (I run out of drawn comb fast) works well - I couldn't be bothered with the moving around of the nucs. I use overwintered nucs as donors, stealing brood from them seems to slow the swarming down a bit.

I like Rogers stuff.

 

[user 20297]

I like Rogers stuff.

Thank-you....I'm glad someone sticks up for him...he'd probably hate me.

 

[domino]

Thank-you....I'm glad someone sticks up for him...he'd probably hate me.

If people take the time to produce content for beekeepers to help them out why be bitchy about them? He was one of the first people when I started who didn't make queen rearing sound like quantum theory.

 

[Newbeeneil]

What do people thing of Roger Patterson's Method? I haven't used it, but it sounds straightforward, frugal, capable of multiplying bee stocks by large amounts, very quickly and doesn't require a second apiary. I don't think the queen needs handling, but does need identifying.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/rogerpattersoninc.html

I was with Roger when we produced 10 nucs in 2018. His system works well if you want to produce a large number of nucs from a single strong colony and still even get a crop of honey.
If you follow his directions diligently you should get good results.

 

[user 20297]

If people take the time to produce content for beekeepers to help them out why be bitchy about them?

I fully agree; why be bitchy in any case? No-one needs to do anything that anyone suggests or recommends. It is enough to say that something sounds too complex or doesn't work well or can be replaced by a better method; but no need to attack the proponent of a concept.

 

[Nige.Coll]

e QC


Day 4
Inspect to see if QC has emerged
If so, check she has intact wings

Why is step 4 needed ?
Because the nuc is too bloody small to keep the queen cell warm so the wings form properly.

 

[Nige.Coll]

What do people thing of Roger Patterson's Method? I haven't used it, but it sounds straightforward, frugal, capable of multiplying bee stocks by large amounts, very quickly and doesn't require a second apiary. I don't think the queen needs handling, but does need identifying.

http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/rogerpattersoninc.html

Pretty much the same as the rest of the stuff he spouts, utter crap.

 

[user 20297]

Pretty much the same as the rest of the stuff he spouts, utter crap.

Does that mean he's good then?

 

[Nige.Coll]

Does that mean he's good then?

No lol. he is a dangerous man.
He preys on the gullible and inexperienced.