Reiver
New Bee
- Joined
- May 8, 2015
- Messages
- 7
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Scottish Borders
- Hive Type
- National
- Number of Hives
- 2 I hope
Thought I would share my recent experience as it may help others, either to do the same (if it works) or to avoid the issue (if it fails).
I am also open to suggestions if you think I should be doing things differently.
But first let me take you back a few days......
Thursday, 4th June,
Conducted an inspection on my only hive (bought in April from a local beekeeper who had over wintered a nuc created last year).
Hive is on two brood boxes with one super.
Not much activity in the super but both brood boxes had 6-7 frames with brood and stores plus 1-2 frames of just maturing honey.
Spotted the queen and saw lots of cells with larvae at different stages.
So far so good.
Thursday, 11th June,
During this weeks inspection I spotted a single occupied supercedure cell (in the top third of the frame) in both the lower brood box and the upper. Best guess they were about 7or 8 days old so I must have missed them starting last week
By this time there were about 8 frames with brood, and 2 frames of honey in each box. Still no real activity in the super.
I did not see the queen, but noted plenty of larvae but did not spot eggs.
Decided to split the hive.
Friday, 12th June,
Limited by lack of hive boxes, I could only split the hive into two separate brood chambers with one super above each, no queen excluder.
Noted that both supercedure cells had been capped off.
Placed the upper brood box onto a separate stand about four feet away from original site ( best I could do at the time)
My figuring is that majority of bees in the top brood box would be hive bees and the foraging bees would return to the hive in the original location.
Sunday, 14th June,
Observation of the hives showed good level of activity in and out of the original hive, but also a couple of bees flew into the 'new' hive.
Hoping I have done the right thing, I will continue to observe the hives during this week and do an inspection next Saturday when I hope to find a new queen in each.
Any thoughts, advice etc would be welcome.
Thanks for reading all this.
I am also open to suggestions if you think I should be doing things differently.
But first let me take you back a few days......
Thursday, 4th June,
Conducted an inspection on my only hive (bought in April from a local beekeeper who had over wintered a nuc created last year).
Hive is on two brood boxes with one super.
Not much activity in the super but both brood boxes had 6-7 frames with brood and stores plus 1-2 frames of just maturing honey.
Spotted the queen and saw lots of cells with larvae at different stages.
So far so good.
Thursday, 11th June,
During this weeks inspection I spotted a single occupied supercedure cell (in the top third of the frame) in both the lower brood box and the upper. Best guess they were about 7or 8 days old so I must have missed them starting last week
By this time there were about 8 frames with brood, and 2 frames of honey in each box. Still no real activity in the super.
I did not see the queen, but noted plenty of larvae but did not spot eggs.
Decided to split the hive.
Friday, 12th June,
Limited by lack of hive boxes, I could only split the hive into two separate brood chambers with one super above each, no queen excluder.
Noted that both supercedure cells had been capped off.
Placed the upper brood box onto a separate stand about four feet away from original site ( best I could do at the time)
My figuring is that majority of bees in the top brood box would be hive bees and the foraging bees would return to the hive in the original location.
Sunday, 14th June,
Observation of the hives showed good level of activity in and out of the original hive, but also a couple of bees flew into the 'new' hive.
Hoping I have done the right thing, I will continue to observe the hives during this week and do an inspection next Saturday when I hope to find a new queen in each.
Any thoughts, advice etc would be welcome.
Thanks for reading all this.