Splitting Hive

[Mountain Bee]

I currently have one hive that is very strong so last sat. I split it with the info from a old timer. Bees were in 2 deeps with two medium supers on. So I just took one deep off with one super and sit it beside the parent hive on a bottom board and put a new inner cover and top on it also added a new deep to both with new foundation. Was told to wait 4 days and destroy any cap queen cells leaving any uncapped cells alone in the queenlees hive. Has anyone done this with great results or a total bust?. I was always told that the split will need to be moved miles away from the parent or the bees would just go back to the parent leaving the split empty so far this proves to not be true for the split is still full of bees 2 days later. Also I need to say that I wanted the split to raise their own queen because they seem to be really hardy stock.

[Hokie Bee Daddy]

I did this last year and it was a total bust for me. The foragers will go back to the parent hive and in my case I didn't have enough extra usable space for these bees. The parent hive will have more bees and they won't use the foundation as the extra space they need like they will drawn comb. In my case, a cold spell hit and there wasn't enough room for the bees in the parent hive even though I added a super of foundation. I lost a lot of bees during that cold spell and neither hive gave me honey last year.

This year I'm doing smaller four frame splits to keep from disrupting the parent hive so much. My experience has been that the parent hive will still make honey doing these smaller splits.

It sounds like your hives are doing well so far. The congestion showed up for me on day 8 after the split. I've heard of others doing the same kind of split that you did with good results. It just didn't work for me. If I had it to do over again, I would move that split to another location for a couple of weeks to be on the safe side.

Best of luck to you.

[sasquatch]

I use the walk away methed every year and werks great. but i allways relocate the queenliss new box.and wipeout the queen cups in the original hive.and i ampup the split with brood while they have a queen cooking.werks for me.

[Zonker]

Why wipe out the queen cells? I've split hives without any trouble but I've never heard about killing queen cells. I do it with just a couple of frames of brood, but I leave the new hive in the original hives location so that the foragers come home to the new hive.

[Box]

I support Zonker's suggestion, I use almost the same method, all foraging bees returning to their original place not their original home.
I only leave 1 frame of eggs and open brood in the old hive and take out half the capped brood to the split ,witch also recive the old queen
the split will quickly gain strenght and the old hive just have to make a queen ,they already have the strenght of the foragers.
It's all about timing and is the timing right then the hive with foraging bees will produce more honey than they would have done without being divided, for the simple reason that they only
has very little open brood so they can make a new queen and before she is ready to lay eggs, they must not use food for brood and all nectar can be saved ..... to our great joy.

[max2]

"I was always told that the split will need to be moved miles away from the parent "

I did a split this way successfully: From a hive with 10 brood and 10 honey frames I placed 50% of each into two Full Size supers located 1 m each side of the original hive. I killed the queen and gave each new split a new queen.
Having the splits evenly spaced from the original location meant that the field bees spread fairly evenly.
It works, is easy and costs the cost of a queen each.

[Beeman410]

1 frame of eggs, 1 frame of capped brood both covered with nurse bees, 2 frames of honey & pollen and thats all they need...
I've never had them not make a good queen doing this... and i keep them in the same yard.
i dont destroy queen cells...
Let the bees do what they do and it works it self out as long as the weathers right and they have the resources they need...
When you micro manage to much you end up screwing things up :P

[Mountain Bee]

from with I understand that after 4 days of the split you should remove any CAPPED queen cells because these cells are made with eggs that are to old. So removing capped cells only and leaving any uncapped cells alone will make sure you don't end up with a inferior queen.

[fish_stix]

Bees don't try to raise queens from inferior larva unless something is really bad wrong like laying workers, etc. Don't you think they know which larva are the right age and which are too old? If they have multiple cells they were made from perfectly good larva. Someone spreading that kind of nonsense is full of beans or something else unmentionable on this forum.

[SallyD]

Mountain Bee so you left the original queen in the original hive? You are going to let the new hive raise their own queen? Was there newly laid eggs in the new hive in order for them to raise a queen or did you just move some queen cells on frames with this new split?.

[Mountain Bee]

Mountain Bee so you left the original queen in the original hive? You are going to let the new hive raise their own queen? Was there newly laid eggs in the new hive in order for them to raise a queen or did you just move some queen cells on frames with this new split?.

Yes I left the original queen in the parent hive and the split was made with frames including brood in all stages of development. There was no queen cells in the split when it was made.I want the split to raise there own queen because the parent hive are really hardy bees.

[MattDavey]

When you consider the Factors contributing to Swarms:http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...arm-Prevention, you can actually exacerbate the situation and increase the likelihood of a swarm.

To decrease swarming, I would do this:
Move the parent hive at least a few feet away from original location. Place a new hive in the original place of the parent hive. Move one frame with eggs and two frames of capped brood to the new hive. Also move one frame of stores with a frame of foundation between the brood frames and the stores frame. In the parent hive place foundation in the broodnest alternated with a least two frames of brood.

Analysis
The foragers will go to the new hive (No need to move hives off site.) Being queenless the new hive will build queen cells and raise a new queen (the bees will choose the best age larvae). Due to no where to store all the nectar coming in from the large number of foragers, it forces them to build comb. They won't swarm because they don't have a queen and because they have open brood. It will take up to a month before the queen starts laying.

The old hive has no incoming resources due to no foragers, so empty cells from emerging brood remain empty until the queen can lay an egg in them. Alternated frames of (2) brood and (1) foundation force the Nurse bees to build comb. Which allows the queen more space to lay and so keeps the Nurse bees busy. There would usually be enough stores in the hive to last them several weeks. By that time young bees have started foraging.

The new hive with the foragers will store more honey due to little brood. You can also merge them back together later in summer because they are next to each other.

Matthew Davey

[enchplant]

If you are splitting and still trying to get honey shouldn't you take the queen and the open brood to a new location in your yard. Give her pollen and some honey. The nurse bees will look after the open brood there. Meanwhile back at the old hive you will have put on extra supers You have all the foragers with no one to feed 'cos all they have is capped brood. You have left one frame of eggs in the original hive which they use to raise queen cells. A whole month goes by before there is any eggs laid in the original hive so all the foragers do is store honey in the supers.

[MattDavey]

Enchplant, I was talking about splitting for swarm control, so you need to make sure there is enough for Nurse bees to do in the parent hive.

Also, you want a frame of stores for the new hive in case the weather goes bad. It takes time to draw comb, so they need somewhere to store it. Older Nurse bees are the ones who usually draw comb, so you need a good number of them as well. Having a few brood frames also indicates where the brood nest will be.

Matthew Davey