[Brad Bee]

Guys, I am a farm boy. I grew up on a farm raising cows, hay and most every creature God ever made. I am one of those people who make everything.

I digress. I am about to have anxiety attacks over splitting a hive of bees! I don't know what the problem is, I think I have watched every video on youtube about making splits and making queens. I am somewhat OCD and I typically try to read as much as possible and ask as many questions as I can before I screw up something.

Here is what I think I want to do. I think I am going to make one of those 3 horizontal bar frames. I am going to pull a frame of fresh eggs and cut cells and glue them to the bars with melted wax. Destroy eggs to create skips so the queen cells can be formed well.

So now to my questions, does that sound like a good plan for small scale queen rearing? I've read that I need to create a strong queenless nuc to start the queen cells and need to put them in a queenright hive, above a queen excluder for them to be finished. Why not just open the strong nuc and leave them in it? I guess that's where I get lost.

If I want to create 2 or 3 frame nucs to make as many hives as I can from one hive and put 2 queen cells in each. What day after capping, or what day after placing the cells with eggs would I need to put the queen cells in? I watched a video that said to put 2 cells in each hive to increase success of having a queen, is that the general consensus? If I make nucs with 2 frames of bees, and feed the heck out of them is that an accepted practice or is it stupid to dilute my bees so weakly?

Sorry for all the questions, but I am on the verge of doing this, IF the weather will ever hold. Looks like we've got another cold front coming in next week with lows around freezing. Do I need to wait until that passes to start creating queen cells?

 

[USMCEOD]

Fat beeman has a video on YouTube that shows what you are talking about... I'd also look at Michael Bush's website Practical beekeeping and read about queen rearing there. try it and see how many queen cells you get and go from there..
First you need to be sure you have drones flying so your queens will have suitors and get mated well. As far as the cold, I'd wait till it warms a little. Biggest thing for me ( I have trouble with) don't bee too hasty.. do a little at a time until you are sure of the process

 

[Lburou]

It sounds like you are thinking of using the Hopkins method of queen raising. It should work for you.

I'm going to raise some queens this Spring as well. I'm planning to graft and use the Ben Harden method of raising the cells in a queen right hive. You might want to look that over. Its a lot easier than other methods for just a few queens. Here is another link for the Harden method. HTH

 

[Brad Bee]

USMCEOD, being hasty if one of my faults. I don't want to rush this but I feel that my best hive is in danger of swarming within the next few weeks if I don't do something. I may take the queen and a few frames of bees out and try to keep them that way first, then split later. I'll read MB's website again, for the 20th time. LOL

Lburou, I hadn't read of the Hopkins method until your post, but basically that but I will cut out comb in rows and attach the rows to a frame with a top bar, two middle bars and then the bottom bar. I will "glue" the cells on the frame with wax to the underside of the top, and two middle bars. I will check out the Ben Harden link you provided as well. Thanks for the info.

 

[JRG13]

Honestly, I would pull a 3-4 frame nuc from the hive, with 2 frames with some eggs and young larvae on newer comb. You will then get enough cells to make a few splits, albeit you will have to cut some out but it's much easier than slicing up comb and gluing it to a frame. The other 2 frames should be capped brood and pollen/honey.

 

[Brad Bee]

JRG13, you are referring to a walk away split? Is that correct?

 

[heaflaw]

Brad, I tried the method you described once, but I think that by using melted wax I killed much of the young larva. Don't attach with melted wax on all the strip-just in spots.

 

[JRG13]

Pretty much Brad Bee. I typically have good success with them and always get extra cells to play around with without having to resort to grafting.

 

[Brad Bee]

Thanks for the info heaflaw