Starting a new coloney

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ladyrose1956

New Bee
Joined
Oct 17, 2010
Messages
44
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0
Location
Walsall West Midlands
Hive Type
National
Number of Hives
2
I am so soory if i affended anybody in my last thread but i did get the title wrong the information i require is

At the moment i have two hives my children have bought me another ( nice of them ) what i would like to know can i start a new coloney from one of my hives, the information i have been told is that if i remove a frame with larvey and place it in a nuc with some of the workers i can start a new coloneyk, i am being told that many things i dont know wich is correct after all its the bees welfare that maters at the end of the day. So as you are all experienced bee keepers give me some good advice please or should i just go and buy some more new ones or wait for a swarm to come on offer:cheers2:
 
I am so soory if i affended anybody in my last thread but i did get the title wrong the information i require is

At the moment i have two hives my children have bought me another ( nice of them ) what i would like to know can i start a new coloney from one of my hives, the information i have been told is that if i remove a frame with larvey and place it in a nuc with some of the workers i can start a new coloneyk, i am being told that many things i dont know wich is correct after all its the bees welfare that maters at the end of the day. So as you are all experienced bee keepers give me some good advice please or should i just go and buy some more new ones or wait for a swarm to come on offer:cheers2:

Wait till they show signs of preparing to swarm. Implement your favourite method of artificial swarm but don't recombine the two sides of the AS. voila, one colony becomes two.

You could do what you suggest, but you'll have to do an AS anyway so what's the rush?
 
Ack, can't edit.

The important question I didn't ask is what are you actually trying to achieve?

If you just want to make increase from your existing colonies then I'll stick to my original suggestion.
 
I think this was briefly mentioned in the other posting, but when are you looking to do this?

Also, what is the reason for wanting to do this?

At this time of the year, all I would be doing is ensuring they can get through the winter ok. You have plenty of time to plan for next year, but I suspect you may end up with your increases next year through normal swarm management.

Have you read some of the books that are available?
Do you have a mentor?
Are you a member of a local Association?

Sorry for not answering you question directly and just coming back with a lot of questions, but I think these will help when it comes to giving you advice.

Rick
 
I think I answered reasonably comprehensively in post#3 on your previous thread.

Regards, RAB
 
or should i just go and buy some more new ones or wait for a swarm to come on offer

In addition to my previous post: How do you think these (above) come into existence?

Exactly, no different than you artificially swarming your colonies for increase, except that you are paying or receiving someone elses efforts (or non-effort in the case of swarms).
 
Exactly, no different than you artificially swarming your colonies for increase, except that you are paying or receiving someone elses efforts (or non-effort in the case of swarms).

RAB,

I hope you are referring to next summer here, it would be madness for Ladyrose to do any fiddling around with the colony at this time of year.

Ladyrose,

Wait until next summer before you do any splitting of the colony! If you were to try and split them now it would certainly result in one (or more likely two) dead colonies by next spring.
At the moment just make sure that your colony gets through winter alive and well and then you can think about possibly splitting it next summer.

Ben P
 
The best plan now is to wait till next spring.
Assess both your current colonies then.
If they both survive the winter then you can consider making an artificial swarm from the strongest of the two.

Lots of time to read up on this before then. bee-smillie
 
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