[nrausch]

I will be splitting a hive this coming week (I've got some new swarm cells), and taking the old queen and selected frames of the hive to another location to simulate a swarm.

My question is: How long should I leave the hive at the new location before I can bring it back home?

Nathan,
Renton, WA

 

[Beeslave]

A couple weeks will be fine. They older foragers will perish and the new bees hatching will become the new foragers and they won't know were they were in the original yard. If you shake lots of young bees into the split you won't have to move them to a new location.

 

[cmbest]

Totally agree with Shannon. I make in-yard splits with brood and young bees. My husband likes to make a small split, move the parent hive to another spot in the yard and put the new, small split in it's place. He says the new split will get the old bees, but with the brood will have new bees coming on, where the old hive will have young bees that won't even know what happened. I think both ways seem to work just fine. It's nice not having to move the hive to a totally different place if you don't have to.

 

[Bradley_Bee]

I make entirely new yards this way. Is it not possible to leave them where you take them ? If not I would guess i would have to agree with everyone else. few weeks should do. less with young bees.

 

[nrausch]

Thank you for your excellent replies!

Should I assume that the young bees are the ones still working on the open brood frames? If I do the split on a warm sunny day, then the foragers would be either out & about or working on frames with nectar & pollen, right? In any case, the young bees would stay with the new split instead of drifting back to their old home.

I'm glad to learn that I can do this without having to transport any hives.

Nathan

 

[StevenG]

Why take the parent hive to a new location, and then bring it back? When I make those kind of splits, I'll set the split off at its permanent location, reduce the entrance, toss grass over the entrance, and the bees in the split reorient to their new location. I leave the parent hive where it was.

A variation would be to put the parent hive in a new location in your apiary, put grass over the entrance forcing the field bees to reorient. And forager bees out in the field when you make the split will return to the new hive at the old location, and help boost its population.

Your call, but I never move them away, only to return them to the same apiary.
Regards,
Steven