which ones do I kill?

[stella379]

I have one golden mean tbh started this May from a swarm. They have been heavily bearding (I know its hot), and I was thinking in genral I may have too big of a population as they have already drawn all the bars. There is about 4 bars of honey in the back although not all of it cured yet. Should I pull a bar from the brood nest to open up more ventilation? If so, how do I choose which one goes? I am not good at spotting the queen yet and I am hoping not to kill her. Any thoughts on helping me manage this hive would be helpful.

[Mr.Beeman]

I'm not certain that pulling one bar will decrease the population to the point they will not swarm if in fact it is "overpopulated" as you stated.
As far as the ventilation issue, I've seen some of my cutouts and trap outs in attic spaces that would stiffel a human, but the bees seem to deal accordingly.
Some feral hives have hardly any ventillation whatsoever.
With my TBH I prop the top to allow any breeze to cool off what it can.

[sqkcrk]

Which ones do I kill? Huh?

[Keth Comollo]

Don't kill anything. Make another hive that is 48 inches long and make a split. One bar for one hive next one for the split all the way through the box.

And buy a queen.

[stella379]

Keth,
thank you for the reply but I was reading on this site it was too late in the season to do a split? Is that correct?

[sqkcrk]

I have never heard of destroying brood to provide ventilation. If you feel they need ventilation, somehow open the top to allow the hot air out. If all combs are full of honey or brood and you feel they need more room, pull some honey combs not matter whether all the honeycomb cells are cappeed or not. Generally, in conventional beekeeping equipment, if 75% of the comb is capped the honey is cured. Especially as dry as it has been for quite some time, I doubt you will have any problems w/ the honey.

[JYawn]

I agree with the split.

It is getting a little late to be splitting but certainly not "too" late. Especially if you are at max capacity in your current hive. If you dont split you are either going to kill some of your bees (wouldn't suggest), or you are going to see your bees eventually swarm and you will lose a lot of them anyway.

Worst case scenario is that your split doesn't take off and you have to feed, but that's not as bad as losing a large percentage of them in my opinion.

[Keefis]

You could split them and let one overwinter as a queenless nuc. Then in spring you could requeen.
Or you could requeen the split now and you could possibly get a boost in population before the fall flow is over.
Worst case scenario, it isn't successful, you recombine and not much is lost at all.

[Keth Comollo]

Stella,
As a frame of reference I am a couple of hours north of you and I just checked the mating nucs and found 9 out of 10 have laying queens. I will be overwintering these nucs and feel they have plenty of time to put in the stores needed. If you can get hold of a mated queen that will start laying right away I think you are safe building a split until August 1st in our area. If in the middle of Sept. they seem a bit light I would feed them as much as they will take to get the hive up to weight before Oct. 1st.

[sqkcrk]

You could split them and let one overwinter as a queenless nuc.

Have you ever done that? Or know anyone who has? Because I doubt that it would work, being as there would be no new bees produced to replace those lost. A nonreproductive colony would not survive.

[Keefis]

sqkcrk,
No, I have never personally done that... But there is literature out there saying it is a viable option. Search it and see what you think.
I have read that the queen doesn't lay eggs after a certain point in the winter anyway, so if that is true, from that day till spring no more eggs are laid. Is that wrong?

[Paul McCarty]

Nothing wrong with splitting. Give them a bar of brood and a bar or two of honey. Put some candy in the hve for Winter when the cold comes, or feed heavy syrup in the Fall and you should have a new booming hive by next Spring. Just watch for robbing and be ready to screen off with some sort of robber screen if need be.

[stella379]

ok thanks all! I will keep you posted!

[Che Guebuddha]

Should I pull a bar from the brood nest to open up more ventilation?

Here is a very good pdf read on Ventilation vs Condensation "Constructive Beekeeping by Ed H. Clarke"

I cant help with your OT question since I too started a hive in May.

[Lburou]

Have you ever done that? Or know anyone who has? Because I doubt that it would work, being as there would be no new bees produced to replace those lost. A nonreproductive colony would not survive.

I would expect a laying worker issue if you tried to overwinter without a queen. Better just to go with a new queen if you split, even let them make their own....I wonder too if there might be some queen cells in there now? Are they getting ready to swarm?

[RAFAEL/PR]

i think it be kind of dumb not to split , one, you said the your getting overpopulated, two that must be one hell of a queen you got there, you will want to keep that gene , if i was you i start building another top bar or just buy a warri hive one super deep and a deep put combs that the queen just lay egg on it and some with blood and honey , and let your worker that you split make there own Queen , dont think your guys up north is going to have much of a winter the way the weather is behaving , just feed them if you need to