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Best time of day to split a hive?

9988 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  Glen H
Hi,
What is the best time of day to split a hive?
Is it better to do it when the hive has all the field bees in IE: early morning /evening: or when they are out, Midday?

The half of the hive with the mother queen will be taken to an out yard.


Glen
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I do it when I'm not at work and it's not raining.:)
Do what you need to do when you can, not necessarily when you want to. But, usually some time between daylight and dark. If the colony is strong enough to split the time of day doesn't matter much.
It is advantageous to make splits during the days busiest forage times. That means less foragers in the way and it is the nurse bees that are going to stay with the split. 10 and 2 is a rule of thumb but often I split outside of that and it works fine.
Thanks Guys,
I did it on the weekend, Saturday and took the box with the queen in it to my out yard.
I put a virgin queen caged with some bees, in box that was left, the next day.


Glen
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