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Tactics for making splits

10K views 30 replies 16 participants last post by  Lburou 
#1 ·
I see interest in how to go about making splits so I figured I would start a new thread to discuss just that.
Salty asked me how I make my splits.

So there are many different ways to make NUC splits. I will discuss 2 that I have successfully done and will also add in other thoughts based on my experience. It would be great to have others who successfully make splits chime in as well.

Basic understanding of making splits is everything is moved out of splitting yard once splitting is done. I move everything atleast 3 miles away. Well except for 2 yards and I am not going to explain why.

Method 1: Ruthlessly open up a hive and pull out all brood resting it on the hive next to me on end. I mean ALL the brood. I try to make sure all split boxes have 1 frame capped and 1 frame of open brood on it. So bottom box will have 2 frames brood, 2 frames food (1 pollen, 1 honey). The second box will be stacked on top and the same will happen with the second box. The third box will be placed on top of second box with same brood, food configuration. I forgot to mention all brood goes dead center of box! I will continue until all brood is back in the stack of boxes. Once this is done I will allow the bees to equalize inside the boxes. Meaning your nurse bees and forages will distribute themselves sort of evenly. That evening or next evening we place all the stacked boxes on a pallet so everything is 1 high. Then immediately move them to outyard/s. Next morning we cell all new splits.

***Note*** I never once mentioned about looking or finding the queen. I don't care. Everything gets a cell. Its similar to what Jim described when mentioning checking NUCs at 3 weeks and fixing those that are questionable. Again I dont care.
You can tell where your parent queens are once you check back. It will be the box that has 9 1/2 frames of brood in it.

Method 2: Shake all bees off brood and place all brood above a queen excluder for 24 to 48 hours. This will allow nurse bees to come up on brood and keep parent colony alive. I generally leave a frame of eggs or so in parent colony but not terribly concerned, if she is worth her salt she will mae up for it. Pull two frames bees and brood and place in seperate box (NUC box or full size box matters none) on a pallet in the evening. Once all pallets are filled move them to outyard/s, that night. Next morning add queen cells.

Thoughts: bees drift like alot when you tear them apart. Folks doing this for a living know that drifting means lots of foragers in a few colonies which also means those takes are at about a 30 - 50% range due to all the p^ssed off bees. Acceptance levels take a hit. So thought of taking maybe 12 pallets of doubles to outyard and making all splits as similar as above and setting them down with the bees that are on the frames and thats it. Nurse bees will be on the brood and I am thinking this will alleviate some of the mass drifting of foragers.
 
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#2 ·
***Note*** I never once mentioned about looking or finding the queen. I don't care. Everything gets a cell. Its similar to what Jim described when mentioning checking NUCs at 3 weeks and fixing those that are questionable. Again I dont care.
You can tell where your parent queens are once you check back. It will be the box that has 9 1/2 frames of brood in it.

Method 2: Shake all bees off brood and place all brood above a queen excluder for 24 to 48 hours. This will allow nurse bees to come up on brood and keep parent colony alive. I generally leave a frame of eggs or so in parent colony but not terribly concerned, if she is worth her salt she will mae up for it. Pull two frames bees and brood and place in seperate box (NUC box or full size box matters none) on a pallet in the evening. Once all pallets are filled move them to outyard/s, that night. Next morning add queen cells.

Thoughts: bees drift like alot when you tear them apart. Folks doing this for a living know that drifting means lots of foragers in a few colonies which also means those takes are at about a 30 - 50% range due to all the p^ssed off bees. Acceptance levels take a hit. So thought of taking maybe 12 pallets of doubles to outyard and making all splits as similar as above and setting them down with the bees that are on the frames and thats it. Nurse bees will be on the brood and I am thinking this will alleviate some of the mass drifting of foragers.
I use option 2. don't you find using option 1, that the hives that end up with the queen in it, also end up with all the foragers in it as they can find the queen in the yard?
also I assume you do this while in S.C.? So people in the North because you are starting later may want to put more brood in the split/nuc early in the season.

also because I need to track my queens I only use capped brood as I want to know if the queen cell fails, I can always put in a new cell but don't want them raising their own queen as I only get this aggresive on hive I don't like the genetics on.
 
#3 ·
Its an excellent point that I am doing this in the south. I still make splits in Schoharie county after I get them home but the only expectations I have from them are solid heavy hives ready for wintering here until mid December before they become snow birds and head down south. Sometimes I get honey from them sometimes NOT! However the ones I make in the south go thru a complete honey flow down there before landing their little feet here to work.

I often wondered if the foragers find and stick with the queen. It appears to me NOT the case. More times than not I have seen them stick to the bottom box on the pallet. I don't mind splitting either way. option 1 is down and dirty. Option 2 is more work intensive as you have to shake bees and use queen excluders. That also means you need to own more equipment.
 
#4 ·
BMAC, this is just what I need, more choices on how to make splits:scratch: really, I am happy you started this thread, hopefully many will chime in like you say and give us their methods, as I'm sure there are many good ones out there, just need to find one that works best for you. So far I like your "ruthless method".:thumbsup: John
 
#6 ·
BMAC, making sure you have mostly nurse bees when making up splits to insure a higher success rate makes very good sense but I would like to know why that is not important when putting queen cells into mating nucs, I see a lot of people split a deep 4 ways to use as a mating nuc and they are often taking the hives laying queen after she is mated and laying well and replacing her with a queen cell.Does the small size of these hives prevent the foragers from tearing down the new cell when introduced?
 
#10 ·
Does the small size of these hives prevent the foragers from tearing down the new cell when introduced?
Anyone that runs mating NUCs can tell you its challenging and the those who run large scaled mating yards have mastered that Micro beekeeping. I have found the major problem with mating NUCs is when setting them up with a handful of bees. These bees generally immediately reject the queen cell and tend to abscond. IE you will notice or atleast I have noticed the bees will migrate into a few of the NUCs so you will have more bees than ever thought in the mating NUCs and over half your other NUCs will be completely empty. This is the main reason folks on large scale operations have the mini mating nuc boxes with a screen over the entrance to force the bees to stay inside for a few days.

When I make up my mating NUCs I actually created specialty supers and place on my normal colonies. Queens put eggs in those frames and shortly its full of the nurse bees I am looking forward to working. Then I take out the those frames and place into my mating NUCs. Move the mating NUCs to my outyards (this outyards is dedicated to mating NUCs only) and cell them.

I like Jims approach. Lynn Barton and I spoke a bit on doing something similar. The exception being we discussed moving the bees to the new location that morning in the doubles, then split them all down. I also like the idea of moving the drifty pallets with the lift. I suppose fogging them with water also helps. Preventing robbing is not to be disregarded as Jim pointed out. We keep a very close eye on robbing as this increases tensions in the yard for both bees and humans.

This year I will keep all my parent colonies for an attempt to run for honey after splits are made. The parents should recover fine. I am a fan of killing old queens as well. They swarm much more and peter out when least wanted. Oh well that is all part of what we love to do, maybe I will cell those one at a time once back here.
 
#7 ·
Too complicated. I take an overwintered colony. I take one frame sealed brood, one frame eggs, one frame pollen, one frame honey, one open frame. Take a fair amount of nurse bees. Put them in a nuc. Move it to a new yard. No three mile rule. Wait three weeks and check. Old hive won't swarm, new hive usually produces a new queen. It ain't rocket science.
 
#8 ·
The methods that Brian described in the op will most certainly work and is quite commonly done. Its a bit more turmoil than I like in a yard but sometimes nucing involves a lot of turmoil no matter how you do it. Of course we do things somewhat differently (I can hear the surprised gasps all around). In my mind a perfect scenario is never handling a frame more than once. If its a double I split it before even pulling a frame and usually look downstairs first. (more surprised gasps and someone in the back whispers "but the queen is usually upstairs") Don't worry I'm just taking a quick inventory, if there isnt much there I will begin setting it up for a nuc and then begin dropping the good stuff into the lower box, starting from one side frame feeder, honey, brood, open brood, brood, brood, (if there is a lot) extra bees, then fill it out with empties. If there is brood downstairs I leave some making sure there is at least some open brood and usually honey needs to be dropped down from the upper box, and ration out pollen frames equally. I spend 10 seconds or so looking at each frame of brood for the queen as I progress through both boxes. When I find her (warning graphic language) I kill her. I keep an empty box near if there is extra brood to begin making a third nuc up. Set the new nucs onto a pallet and lid them always keeping an eye out for robbing. We keep a forklift handy and at the first sign of drifting we just start moving pallets around to neutralize it. After the yard is done we have lots of 1 high pallets of bees a few with queens that we miss but it isnt usually more than 10%, meaning typically something under 5% have queens. That evening or early the next morning we move everything out to a new yard and let them fly for a full day. When the new yard is set out it should ideally look like the person running the forklift should be ticketed for a DUI. Scatter and alternate angles as much as possible and put in a few "firebreaks" if there is room. Anything but lined up neatly in a row. The next morning we even up bee populations as needed, sometimes by simply trading places and also by pulling frames of bees out to bolster the hives that are short of bees and then install a queen cell down on the brood to prevent chilling on the occasional cold night. On checkbacks 3 weeks later those missed queens are usually wall to wall brood and we use that to rebuild the misses. We also occasionally make up additional nucs in split boxes and transfer those into some of the "misses" as well. So there ya go, a bit of work for sure and a few more steps than most take but worth the extra work in my opinion.
 
#9 ·
I just take two frames of brood one frame of honey/pollen and drop in two new frames on the outside. Then i shake in one or two frames of bees if i'm keeping them in the same yard. Pop in a queen cell or let them raise there own and that's it. Fast and simple.
I do this before the main flow and split those nucs half way through the flow for my overwintered nucs. Your nuc count can grow very fast this way.
 
#11 ·
I tested Mel's OTS method last year on a few hives for the fun of it. I see this a fine way for a small timer to make some splits with no queen yard or cells, and no searching for the queen. It's probably too much work for the big guys.

Shook and moved all but 1 1/2 frame of brood above an excluder.
Moved bottom box with queen 10 feet away the next day. Field bees returned to old hive, leaving the old queen with bees as a nuc which built back up well.
OTS notched every frame that had ready larva at this time. Mel says to make 2 notches per frame. I made one notch per frame to encourage more frames of qc's. Mel also uses his hive tool to crush the bottom of a row of cells. I have found using the corner of my hive tool to break the bottom wall of a single cell, then press down at 45 degree angle, allows me much more control and acceptance.
A week later, there were queen cells on several of the notched frames. Every frame with a qc was used to start a nuc mixed with brood and bees from other hives moved to a new yard. I left a very weak split for the hive in the old location since it still had the foragers. It built back up well.

Just my 2 cents, OTS is pretty slick. Mike Bush talks about "the panacea of beekeeping", giving a frame of brood to a "possibly queenless" hive. I OTS that frame. It changes their behavior toward that cell and gives them a way to make a straight cell in the middle of a comb.
 
#12 ·
Don, good to hear the OTS worked for you, first time I have read that anyone actually tried it and gave their results. I have watched Mel's video a few times and seems to me the man really understands bees and their behavior. I will have to give it a try myself sometime. John
 
#16 ·
I didn't get the kind of production Mel charts out, partly due to my not having enough drawn comb. My splits got 4 drawn frames, then foundationless frames.

Still, OTS is simple, reliable once you get the knack, and provides free queens cell that look as nice as any. Since I'm using foundationless, you know I value free ;-) I plan on using this for 60 new splits this spring. More if I can make enough parts!
 
#13 ·
We tried (as an experiment) a split by taking three frames of eggs, brood ,etc. with nurse bees from one hive and three frames eggs, brood, stores, with nurse bees from another hive. We placed them into a ten frame medium and made sure there was no queen in the new hive and added four frames of foundation to the outsides of the center frames.
This was all placed within 20 yards of the original hive.
Needless to say it worked well. We added (paper combine) some bees from a queenless cutout about a month after the split.
Again, worked out to be a very strong hive, with good genetics.
 
#15 ·
Jim, when you talked about how much honey a newly make up 5 comb nuc can make, it reminded me of the cut down splits I did last year on a bunch of my hives, it was the first time I had tried it. It was unbelieveable to me how much honey they made in a short time without any mouths to feed. John
 
#19 ·
Hi there!!! Would someone give us newbies step by step instructions for splits. This will be my first Spring and first honey flow, etc. I am very limited on money, so want to hopefully raise my own queens. Please Start with #1 and so on and I can print it out and take it home. Thanks so much in advance.:)

Simple and sweet way, I should add. I am all about getting it done practically.
 
#21 ·
Michael Bush explains splits quite well. Above is great stuff. If I may try to shrink down to one or two new hives where take two frames of brood from (?) hives and spread them out really does not apply.
#1 First year, even in Texas, to make splits is aggressive. They need to get the wheels under themselves before they start to roll. But it can be done.
#2 Better to make one split that survives than two that fail.
#3 You need bees that stay in the new home. Read above twice, three times. Come back in several days and read it again.
#4 The queen part is the easiest. It is the stay home part that kills you.
 
#23 ·
#1 First year, even in Texas, to make splits is aggressive. They need to get the wheels under themselves before they start to roll. But it can be done.
Especially in Tx. If memory serves well Holland is a fairly dry desert like part of Tx. I never kept or worked bees in that area but I did keep them more towards Houston. Even in that green part of the state gets really dry.

If you plan to have your first hive this year and make splits, you better keep a close eye on their feed needs and feed like crazy so they get strong enough to make the winter.
 
#25 ·
The concepts of splits are:

You have to make sure that both of the resulting colonies have a queen or the resources to make one (eggs or larvae that just hatched from the egg, drones flying, pollen and honey, plenty of nurse bees).

You have to make sure that both of the resulting colonies get an adequate supply of honey and pollen to feed the brood and themselves.

You have to make sure that you account for drift back to the original site and insure that both resulting colonies have enough population of bees to care for the brood and the hive they have.

You need to respect the natural structure of the brood nest. In other words, brood combs belong together. Drone brood goes on the outside edge of the brood and pollen and honey go outside that.

The old adage is that you can try to raise more bees or more honey. If you want both, then you can try to maximize honey in the old location and bees in the new split. Otherwise most splits are either a small nuc made up from just enough to get it started, or an even split.

There are many variations on splits, but they all need to take those things into account. Drift is easier that you might think. Just setting both new halves of the splits beside the old location causes the returning bees to choose a new colony (turn right or turn left). Shaking in a few extra bees can also keep more bees there as bees shaken from brood combs tend to be young bees who reorient quickly to the new location.

I think the most common mistake is trying to make too small of a split or too many.

I make up mating nucs that are two frames and some build up pretty well, but they struggle at first and it takes some time. A stronger split does not struggle so much. Five deep frames of brood and honey is about the minimum that really takes off well. Ten frames is probably even better. More is probably not necessary.

Part of the problem with all of this is that beekeeping is more art than science. While the above concepts are more science, deciding exactly when or how big needs to take into account forage, time of year, how fast the hive you're splitting is building up etc. In the end you need to develop a feel for how all of these things play into your decisions. That, unfortunately takes learning from your mistakes.

I heard a story about a young man who was taking over as a bank president. The person who held the job before had been there for forty years and had made the company a lot of money. The young man asked him for advice before he left. The old man said that to make the bank money you make good decisions. The young man asked how do you make good decisions. The old man said, you make bad decisions and learn from them. In the end, this is the really the ONLY way to learn. Make mistakes and learn from them. I'm not saying you can't learn from other people's mistakes or from books, but in the end you have to make at least some of your own mistakes.
 
#26 ·
The weather determines the best way to split. One year, on June 1, after finding the queen, you can move 7-8 frames of brood away and place in a new location in the same yard. The next year , you will be lucky to steal 2 frames of hatching brood(one of eggs) and bees from 5 hives to start a new hive. Be flexible, like a teenager on prom night in the back of a beetle.

Crazy Roland
 
#30 ·
In the world of beekeeping there are few absolutes. Bees will react differently to different conditions. What might work perfectly one year may be a failure the next. What experience gives you, though, is a perspective on what gives you the greatest chance of success or failure. Follow the basic guidelines that have been laid out here by numerous posters regarding timing, bee population, brood and feed requirements and minimizing drift and robbing danger and it will give you the greatest chance of success.
 
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