Splitting TBH - Distance

[Rob Simmons]

When splitting a TBH, how far apart should the 2 hives be set from one another?

[llgoddj]

I plan on making a split some time this coming Spring as well. After quite a bit of reading, I don't believe the distance is that important, meaning even 5 or 10 feet is sufficient as the pheromones given off by the queen will attract the workers back to their respective hive.

Good luck,

larry

[shannonswyatt]

Yes, a split on a TBH is the same as a Lang. Distance shouldn't be an issue.

[Oldtimer]

Couple of points, when you make the split many of the bees in the hive you move away will drift back to the origional site and leave the other one weak. To help with this, you can move both hives an equal distance away in opposite directions. But if you don't want to move one of the hives, dump into the one that gets moved away, twice as many bees as what you want to end up with, taken mostly from the brood area where the most young bees are. Bees under around 2 weeks old will not have flown and learned their location yet so will stay in the hive you've moved, but the older bees will return to the other hive. So shoot for double the number of bees you need, and it will roughly work out, provided the hive has a normal brood nest with hatching and young bees.

The other dilema is the bees will be more inclined to stay in the hive you move, if that one has the origional queen. But the opposing problem is that young bees accept a new queen better than old bees, and the origional hive will have more old bees. So there is an argument to move the queen and introduce the new one to the origional hive, but also an argument to introduce the new queen to the hive that's been moved, where they are mostly young bees.

So what to do is a judgement call. But all things considered, in my opinion it's usually best to move the origional queen with the hive that gets moved, to hold as many bees as possible, and introduce the new queen to the other hive. If there is no nectar coming in, feed the bees sugar syrup during the queen introduction it puts them in a better mood and increases chances of success. Don't spray them with any perfumes or whatever, they don't help and can actually make things worse. Just straight sugar syrup.

[JYawn]

I think Oldtimer has some good tips.

I did a split last year and actually did it a little opposite of what Oldtimer suggested, but still had great results. Either way, I dont think the distance matters too much in the long run. My hives were only 3-4 feet aparts and it went well.

I like the sound of Oldtimer's suggestions though. I would probably try that way if I were to split again.

[rmcpb]

I think you have to accept that most of the flying bees will drift back to the original hive so Oldtimer's idea is good. Distance does not matter as the nurse bees in the new hive will orientate to it when they start foraging. Some TBH people split into the other end of their long box successfully and that is 4' max distance!

[Oldtimer]

Ha Ha well it's good that someone can do the OPPOSITE of what I said and still get good results!

That's the thing about beekeeping there's many ways to skin a cat LOL.

Which should still not be taken as license that EVERY way is a good way, some arent.

[Delta Bay]

When splitting your hive you could consider which brood combs going where. The split with the old queen should be made up with all the open brood with all or mostly capped brood going to the new half. If you make sure that the queenless half has the resources to produce a queen cell you can use the cell as your new queen or if you prefer, on day ten you can pinch all queen cells and introduce a caged mated queen.

This can be helpful in reducing each splits mite loads to a degree.