Making a split

[davlanders]

I've been reading about splitting my hive. My hive is going pretty strong. My question is, is it too late to do a split now. I live in N. Central Texas where it will be hot until end of September/October with first Winter weather not until December (if at all!! http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

Can I safely do a split now?

[bjerm2]

Yes you can. Keep an eye on the split and if need be in a few days feed them some sugar syrup. Since the weather is warm (hot) there, you will not lose brood. I would move the hive with the original queen to the new location with several frames of sealed brood and honey. Are you planing on raising your own queen or buying one? If your planing on raising your own make sure you have 2 frames of sealed brood and at least one frame of eggs with young larva in them, some honey and pollen. The best would be if you got another queen then there would not be a lag of worker bees to help the new hive survive. You should have no problems.
Dan

[Ross]

You can do one now, but be prepared to feed as our flow is over until fall. If you have enough stored honey to leave some in both hives, so much the better. I got a great flow last fall off of the golden rod and asters and my bees went into winter in great shape.

[davlanders]

We have plenty of frames of honey from bitterweed crops last year to keep the bees in supply (tastes really bad!!)

I think I will try it this weekend. Thanks for the support. If anyone has any more advice to give, I'm all ears http://www.beesource.com/ubb/smile.gif

[Daisy]

"If anyone has any more advice to give, I'm all ears..."

Well I don't know about advice but I don't mind tellin ya how I split.

Ideally I would take the queen with the split, away from the original hive, leaving most of the brood nest behind.....

Take the queen and some of her brood nest, honey, pollen to the new colony stand.

I park the split Right Next to the original hive.... Let them go back and forth from hive to hive till they settle down.

The old hive will use the left behinds to create a queen.

[honeylocust]

I did a split last week (trying to keep them from swarming) but I left the queen with the old hive. Did I make a mistake?

What is the reasoning why the queen should be given to the new split?

[Michael Bush]

My theory, if the purpose of the split is to head off a swarm, is that I'm trying to simulate a swarm. A swarm is when the old queen and a lot of young bees leave. So if I take the old queen and a lot of young bees and remove them, I have simulated a swarm.

[honeylocust]

Thanks MB.

I guess I made a mistake doing it the way I did. (I seem to be making lots of mistakes lately.) Time will tell whether they will still swarm or not.

So far, so good. I checked them Wed, one week ago since the split, and they were looking good. No sign of swarm cells and they were working on the supers.

[Michael Bush]

You can do many variations of splits and they will work out fine. That is just my theory on preventing swarms. I'm trying to come as close as I can to the results of a swarm. Any split may head off swarming.

[davlanders]

I went out to look through the hive today. It was very strong, so I decided to make the split. I put 5 frames from old hive to new hive with eggs, larva, and capped larva along with workers and queen and left the rest to the old hive. I placed the new hive in the location of the old hive and turned the old hive 90 degrees to have the entrances to both fairly close together. I guess we'll see what happens.

On a bright note, I removed three supers from another hive that has had very nasty honey from bitter weed in the last few years, but tastes great today!! Good news, will be able to get about 20gal of honey that wasn't expected!!