Be gentle I am new to this. the Subject is making splits

[CtyAcres]

Rick- Mel improved upon C.C Miller and Doolittle's methods and it beats the varroa cycle if you
have that problem. It relies also on July splits, which give you good young queens going into
winter.

[kilocharlie]

6010 - A little bit of info: the late Dr. Harry Hyde Laidlaw developed the best queen introduction cage to date. He was a professor at the University of California at Davis (the bee research center there is named for him). The best model of his push-in queen introduction cages was a 5" wide x 7" long x 7/8" tall (inside dimensions) rectangle of wood, covered on top with #8 hardware cloth, and the inside chamber was surrounded by a sheet metal strip protruding 3/8" below the wooden rectangle. There is no queen candy release port. Sometimes the queen takes longer than the candy lasts to get accepted by the host colony, resulting in her being attacked and often killed.

With the Laidlaw push-in queen intro cage, the beekeeper brushes empty of bees a comb that is quite level, with an area of mostly empty worker-sized cells (but about 10% capped honey and pollen), he places the mated queen onto the comb, then traps her under the cage without attendant bees from her own colony, pushing the sheet metal strip into the comb all the way down to the wood. He then replaces this piggy-backed cage/frame combo back into the hive for at least 2 days (longer as necessary - up to 40 days in some cases).

He watches the behavior of the bees before releasing the queen. If they appear to be making a "ball" over the queen cage, they are attacking her. If you see attending bees feed her, she is becoming accepted. The large area under the cage gives her room to begin laying eggs. Laying increases her queen substance production, particularly pheromones, that greatly promote acceptance by the host colony.

100% acceptance rates are often experienced using Laidlaw push-in queen introduction cages, quite useful as your taste in high-quality queens goes up the price-per-queen scale (also get a queen muff! I hate watching even a $20.00 queen escape and fly away, let alone a $100 I.I. queen, or worse a one-of-a-kind queen with unique genetics).

The cages are shown in his book, Contemporary Queen Rearing, available through Dadant and Sons. When I read this, I went to the shop and made a run of 50 of them - enough for all my hives at the time. My only modification was to make them so they fit into an empty Miller-type hive top feeder for convenient storage. The 7/8" depth under the hardware cloth (or screen) keeps her safe from attacking bees who seek to pull off a leg or wing, etc. The metal strip and wide wooden rectangle frustrates attacking bees from killing the introduced queen by digging under a push-in cage without these features in order to get at her. Note - if you are using all medium depth boxes, make the outside dimensions so the queen cage fits your frames.

CtyAcres - Mel Disselkoen's method does indeed produce excellent queens, my only criticism is that the flour wastes lots of brood, which is not that big a problem if you have lots of strong colonies. I like Dr. Susan Cobey's article, "The Cloake Board Method of Queen Rearing and Queen Banking".

Virginiawolf - Glad you liked Increase Essentials! I can't wait to get all of Dr. Connor's books, and take one of his classes, too! He's awesome.

[weldingfreak6010]

Well just as an update to all you I have just ordered my package of bees. It is from Georgia bees. If money allows I will try for a couple of local nucs and already have a few cutouts scheduled for next month hopefully. I will try to implement the plan developed in this thread. Thanks all

[kilocharlie]

Dr. Connor really explains the differences in colony growth rate mathematics in Increase Essentials. If the bees make it through the first year with a decent buildup, store lots of honey & pollen, and overwinter successfully, you should be able to split once and maybe even twice, depending on how next year goes for nectar flows. I would have ordered overwintered nucleus colonies or a full, thriving hive ready to split. I've always had better luck that way - the growth rates are there for splitting twice - way stronger than most package bee performance. You just need the year (nectar and pollen flows, really) to go good, too. Good Luck!

[weldingfreak6010]

Dr. Connor really explains the differences in colony growth rate mathematics in Increase Essentials. If the bees make it through the first year with a decent buildup, store lots of honey & pollen, and overwinter successfully, you should be able to split once and maybe even twice, depending on how next year goes for nectar flows. I would have ordered overwintered nucleus colonies or a full, thriving hive ready to split. I've always had better luck that way - the growth rates are there for splitting twice - way stronger than most package bee performance. Good Luck!

Thanks for the update i will differently give that a read

[kilocharlie]

Just one more goody for you, Rick - if you aggressively pursue both comb honey production and queen rearing, you will get very, very good at a higher rate. The learning curve is kind of mean at first, but it will put pressure on you to really understand what's happening.

By producing honey-in-the-comb, you will get very skilled at knowing when the bees will swarm and what to do about it. Bees only make "perfect" square boxes of comb (filled and capped all the way to the corners) under ideal conditions, and when crowded like right before swarming. Read Dr. C.C. Miller's Fifty Years Among the Bees (there are other good books about honey-in-the-comb, too). You will also know exactly when to split colonies.

Queen rearing will get you understanding about high quality queens with good genetics vs. medium and low quality queens with undesirable traits.

These are perhaps the two most difficult-to-learn aspects of beekeeping. My attitude was, "Bring it on!" I read everything I can on both subjects, apply it to my situation, and ask lots of questions. I'm always trying new equipment, but then, I'm gagety, and an engineer/carpenter/machinist/millwright/gunsmith, so go figure. Oh, yeah and a fisherman and archer, too, so triple the "gagety" factor, haha.

Going hard at these two aspects of beekeeping, and keeping a notebook will have you making 2 splits a year as often as Mama Nature will let you and your girls do so sooner than you might have otherwise.

[weldingfreak6010]

I want to thank you all for your helpful comments, Just as an update I am getting my package of bees this Monday and hooked up with the local swarm catcher and will hopefully have more bees in a another month or so. I will be implementing the info I have gleaned from all of you and with any luck I will reach my goal of 5 hives making it through winter. I will try to keep updated here if interested.