[BurleyBee]

I have around 18 double deeps boiling over with bees. I grafted Saturday to harvest and incubate this Sunday.

There’s a good Privet flow that starts last week of April/1st week May that last a couple weeks. The past couple years, I’ve had swarm cells after splitting 1st week of March on April 15. Obviously I haven’t been splitting hard enough.

If you were splitting these hives, how many frames of brood would you leave behind in parent colony?

 

[Tigger19687]

Are there Drones in the boxes?
No drones, no splits.
I also wouldn't split 5 framers. Put them in a Deep and let them draw it out... Then split when the flow really starts
Edit, somehow I missed you said DD, not sure why I thought 5 framers.

 

[BurleyBee]

Are there Drones in the boxes?
No drones, no splits.
I also wouldn't split 5 framers. Put them in a Deep and let them draw it out... Then split when the flow really starts

They’re double deeps. Plenty of drones.

 

[COAL REAPER]

i would sell 18 nucs with overwintered queens. and then use 36 singles to get queens mated. redistribute frames from the duds the second week of april and super up. kinda depends on what your goals are though. more honey or more bees?

 

[Gray Goose]

Burley,
are you after "max" increase or just swarm prevention?
swarm prevention, can leave 2 or 3 frames of open/partially sealed brood, and fill the rest with foundation.
I would add an excluder and super IF you put the splits in the same yard, as many feild bees will come back to the old location.
leaving 17ish frames of bees, for 3 to 5 splits, depending on how many cells or how much increase you wish for.

more can be left in the old hive if only 2 or 3 splits are wanted.

somewhat your choice, based on what you are planning to do.

GG

 

[BurleyBee]

Burley,
are you after "max" increase or just swarm prevention?
swarm prevention, can leave 2 or 3 frames of open/partially sealed brood, and fill the rest with foundation.
I would add an excluder and super IF you put the splits in the same yard, as many feild bees will come back to the old location.
leaving 17ish frames of bees, for 3 to 5 splits, depending on how many cells or how much increase you wish for.

more can be left in the old hive if only 2 or 3 splits are wanted.

somewhat your choice, based on what you are planning to do.

GG

2-3 frames is what I’m thinking.

my goal is to prevent swarming leading up to the flow while gaining some extra colonies to either sell or expand with.

 

[Gray Goose]

2-3 frames is what I’m thinking.

my goal is to prevent swarming leading up to the flow while gaining some extra colonies to either sell or expand with.

I would then go with the plan I outlined.
pull the queen and 3-4 frames of bees, take care to take the small frames of brood.
shake in to the NUC 2 more frames of bees to account for the drift back
let the old Stand be queen less. (strong hives make better queens) 9 days after pulling the queen, go in and attempt to do a 3 way split, IE 5-6 frame Splits.
attempt to equalize stores, brood, and make sure each has a queen cell. leave the old location the weakest as feild bees will drift back.
this should get you 1 to 4 split of 20 frames of bees.
doing 3 hives for 9 new splits will likely get you 7 or 8 mated queens, every split will not work.
queen less split can be joined back to queen rite splits. (newspaper combine)
IF you have enough good cells you can make 4- 4frame, instead of 3 5-6 frame, IMO weaker ones tend to do poorly.

consider OTS queen rearing as then you may have cells on different frames as needed.

once the split is "made" cell frame + bees do not open for 3 weeks. even though you will want to.

good luck
have fun

GG

 

[RayMarler]

For every hive to split, take two boxes of frames with you. Split the hive, leaving in place 1 frame honey, 1 frame pollen, 1 frame eggs, 1 frame open larva, and 2 frames sealed brood. Put the 1 frame of pollen, 1 frame of eggs, 1 frame of open larva and 1 frame of honey in the center of the bottom box, with frames you took with you on the sides. Put 2 frames of sealed brood in center of top box that you took with you, with the sides filled with frames you took with you. Leave this in place, without the queen.

The queen box goes to a new stand, adding the other box of frames you took with you. Put 4 of the queens frames in the bottom box with the sides filled with frames you took with you, and the rest of the queens frame in center of top box with frames filled into the sides. Again, this queen right part of the splt gets moved to new stand.

The queen right boxes moved away will lose foragers, the queen-less boxes left in place will raise a queen and become queen right. Do all of this 2-3 weeks before the flow of the privets. The queen right box gets slowed down, the queen-less box gets the foragers that will be dieing off by the time the queen is mated and laying. Over all, the hives will equalize in strength and swarming tendency will have greatly slowed. All the hives also have work of drawing wax to do if you use foundation, which keeps everyone busy and less likely to swarm. This is how I would do the splits myself.

 

[Jim Braun]

Our club had a meeting last night and this was 1 of the topics. We're in mid-Missouri, so probably 3-4 weeks behind you are depending on where you are in Mississippi. Most of the methods and preferences came up in our meeting. I've always just taken 3 frames of bees with at least 1 frame with eggs for my split. Last year I had 1 split that had the queen on my 3 frames, so I left her there. That split gave me 1 super of honey, the original colony also gave me 1/2 super of honey. 1 of the other beekeepers in the club uses this method and sell lots of split and gets a good deal of honey so that will me my go to method from now on. I moved to 1 deep box and 1 medium box with a queen excluder for my brood box, I have good luck with this set up. Lots of others here us double deep but then they have to worry about reversing the boxes. I seem to do OK with not having to worry about late swarms with a smaller brood box. but I watch them pretty closely and equalize in my yards when they get too full. I haven't bought queens for 3 or 4 years so these are Missouri Mutt queens that do well here.

 

[Cloverdale]

University of Guelph…

[/QUOTE]

 

[BurleyBee]

I should have titled “how hard do you split your hives”. As in how many frames of brood you leave behind. I know how to split.

 

[Gray Goose]

Burley
for me it depends on weather.
spring I make a bigger splits to compensate for cool nights.
july I could make smaller ones, and plan to, for over wintering NUCs
in YOUR local maybe you have dearth to think about, queen raising in dearth is more difficult, so there is a locale twist as well. here any dearth is later Aug so not really affected.
and goals, if 100% gain is all you want then safe 1 for 2 splits work fine
If aggressive then 1 for 3 or 4 can be done.

I would try a few different times and sizes keep notes reduce the ones that have poor results and see what works for you.

GG

 

[fieldsofnaturalhoney]

I should have titled “how hard do you split your hives”. As in how many frames of brood you leave behind. I know how to split.

Not hard enough that they suffer (aka take long to bounce back from the missing bees/brood). Timing of build up, feed (natural & artificial), weather and temperature all come into play for me as well.

 

[animal1x]

University of Guelph…

[/QUOTE]
Cloverdale, the second procedure that Dr. Kelly uses in this video, without having to find the queen, is the one I plan on using.

 

[Cloverdale]

I should have titled “how hard do you split your hives”. As in how many frames of brood you leave behind. I know how to split.

The u of G tells you that I the video shows a few ways to do it with each type of split. It’s a good review.

 

[msl]

it all depends on your goles

I often leave just a frame of open brood and the queen behind

 

[jtgoral]

Depends how many 2-frame nucs you can make:

Two Frame Nucleus

or

 

[RayMarler]

Oh well, sometimes it takes me a minute...
I see you are after the Privet flow. Okay, so 1 week before the flow, leave a queen cell in place or a frame with eggs in place, and a frame of emerging brood, in a box of new comb or foundation. Move the rest of the hive with the queen to a new stand. This way there's no or almost no brood to feed as the flow starts and you'll get a new queen out of the deal. You'll get a larger honey crop this way.

 

[BurleyBee]

Oh well, sometimes it takes me a minute...
I see you are after the Privet flow. Okay, so 1 week before the flow, leave a queen cell in place or a frame with eggs in place, and a frame of emerging brood, in a box of new comb or foundation. Move the rest of the hive with the queen to a new stand. This way there's no or almost no brood to feed as the flow starts and you'll get a new queen out of the deal. You'll get a larger honey crop this way.

I don’t think I’ve heard of that method. That sounds interestin.

 

[jtgoral]

I don’t think I’ve heard of that method. That sounds interestin.

Two Frame Nucleus