Hello everyone!! Long time lurker...first time posting. First let me thank everyone for the wealth of info shared here. I have learned so much in the short time here.
I'm currently running 10 frame double deeps on this hive and feeding sugar block and pollen. The queen is from last spring splits. Inspection last Saturday showed me a booming colony with all ages of worker brood from eggs to dark "chocolate" capped brood. As for drones, I didn't see new ones but wasn't looking closely enough for them. I did find drone brood that was both open and capped with some being dark capped almost ready to emerge. It was a bit cool and windy so I didn't want to spend time locating the queen after seeing eggs and larvae only days old. Also, no queen cells were found. Hopefully that sets the scene.
Now for my gamble...
Yesterday (Wednesday) I went out to this same hive and placed a queen excluder between top and bottom deeps. With the plan of checking for queen cells in 3 days and splitting of the deeps prior to virgin queen emerges.
My reasoning being I could get a good start on a spring split if I got the timing correct between queen development,
drone maturity, warming spring weather etc. With the worst case being the new queen doesn't get mated and I have to recombine.
Of course I have reviewed the gestation calendars for queens and drones as well as long range weather forecasts and it all seems to work out pretty well on spot. Normally I would wait until April to split and definitely after seeing drones in hive.
I know I have read somewhere...either here or Dr. Miller or G. Doolittle about this type of splitting but of course I'm not able to relocate the info.
So here I am asking for opinions on my gamble...thanks in advance for all responses!!
I'm currently running 10 frame double deeps on this hive and feeding sugar block and pollen. The queen is from last spring splits. Inspection last Saturday showed me a booming colony with all ages of worker brood from eggs to dark "chocolate" capped brood. As for drones, I didn't see new ones but wasn't looking closely enough for them. I did find drone brood that was both open and capped with some being dark capped almost ready to emerge. It was a bit cool and windy so I didn't want to spend time locating the queen after seeing eggs and larvae only days old. Also, no queen cells were found. Hopefully that sets the scene.
Now for my gamble...
Yesterday (Wednesday) I went out to this same hive and placed a queen excluder between top and bottom deeps. With the plan of checking for queen cells in 3 days and splitting of the deeps prior to virgin queen emerges.
My reasoning being I could get a good start on a spring split if I got the timing correct between queen development,
drone maturity, warming spring weather etc. With the worst case being the new queen doesn't get mated and I have to recombine.
Of course I have reviewed the gestation calendars for queens and drones as well as long range weather forecasts and it all seems to work out pretty well on spot. Normally I would wait until April to split and definitely after seeing drones in hive.
I know I have read somewhere...either here or Dr. Miller or G. Doolittle about this type of splitting but of course I'm not able to relocate the info.
So here I am asking for opinions on my gamble...thanks in advance for all responses!!