Where are you located in NY? I am back and forth with the idea of splitting one hive....it has supercedure and swarm cells, two cells being fed (not sure which ones)...even with drawn comb I wonder if they have a chance....it has been an unusual year here for forage so far, seems there is plenty currently, with knotweed, the goldenrods and asters coming later. What do you think?you can split a little later if you have drawn frames. this very much a local question.
Thanks for the info....cloverdale: I am about 100 miles north of Syracuse near the thousand island bridge to Canada. it is plenty late to split but I have some spring packages I want to re-queen, I will make some splits in the procedure, I hate to waste the good california italians. I also have a local type hive without a good queen so I just got 6 ny raised queens. he had a bunch more, maybe 200 more banked.
Well, I don't think I will split them, they can do whatever they plan. I can combine later if needed....my hives did winter over this last year but had trouble with a laying worker hive and mated queens being balled....we do have lots of beautiful spring honey, though! Yummy!I said above drawn comb helps. late in the season you really do need a mated queen also. in my area in the fall you must be up to something like a deep of bees plus a deep of honey going into winter. the bottom deep should be partialy back filled. the ones more skilled than me who winter nucs in the north, I think winter them in 2 story deep nucs with similar proportions. even double deeps may need additional feed by spring. pretty near impossible to draw out this much comb this time of year. pretty impossible to raise a queen and have enough bees this time of year. kind of doable with a queen ready to work and drawn comb. the Russian type queens do not build up well if you are starting now [bad choice for starting this time of year] they do not build populations well in the fall.
Thanks Beepro, I will do what I did last year for the winter since it worked well...I'd say as long as your local condition support the right temp. and the drone population holds then it is safe
to do a split and have some mated queens. I am in the process of making some August queens that will be
use for overwintering in nucs. If there is a Fall flow then I don't have to feed otherwise I will both
patty and syrup to prepare them for this coming winter. You can do an experiment every year to compare
the result for your local area.