I have a double deep hive that has become too hot to enjoy working and I'm afraid it could cause trouble with nearby animals or people should they come too close. I want to move the hive to another property more rural to requeen. Here is the problem: The hive has one super and two deep brood boxes. It's 16" off the ground on a stanchion, too heavey for my wife and I to move even if I remove the super. My thought is to put each hive body on its own bottom board with a lid, screen the entrances, and leave the super on the original bottom board to collect stragglers. Then at the remote site dispatch the queen and make two hives with purchased queens. Does this sound like a good plan?
need to move and requeen a hot hive
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Yes, decent enough plan, should work. One deep may have more honey and less brood than the other, you might want to balance the frame types between the two. Keep watch for queen cells, they may not accept the intro'd queens untill all young brood has aged and all queen cells started has been destroyed, could take five to seven days to safely intro the queens. good luck.
Here are something to consider about.
I would buy 3 queens for each box to requeen them all at your current location.
The hive with the most runny/disoriented bees in a day or 2 is the queen less hive. If you can
further divide the 10 frames into 5 frames nucs then they will not be as aggressive.
But you will need more queens for this division. And no honey for this year unless you can recombine
them in the Fall with the gentle queens. Put some strips of carpet, synthetic grass or weed guard to suppress the lawn so you
don't have to mow in front of these hives.
I would buy 3 queens for each box to requeen them all at your current location.
The hive with the most runny/disoriented bees in a day or 2 is the queen less hive. If you can
further divide the 10 frames into 5 frames nucs then they will not be as aggressive.
But you will need more queens for this division. And no honey for this year unless you can recombine
them in the Fall with the gentle queens. Put some strips of carpet, synthetic grass or weed guard to suppress the lawn so you
don't have to mow in front of these hives.
doug
Like beepro said splitting to nucs now may be your best bet. Our bee club is having it's talk Monday on splitting your hives now before the fall. I helped a fellow beek split a HUGE colony 2 weeks ago into 3 separate hives. I like the idea of going to nucs and wish I had done that to that monster. The weight factor should help you move them if nothing else.
I just watched Michael Palmer's talk on Queen Raising in the Sustainable Apiary. One great thing I got from that is making a shaker box for finding the queen. It's just a queen excluder nailed to the bottom of a deep with duct tape along the top inside. I seem to have a hard time finding her and this should solve that for me.
Good Luck
Like beepro said splitting to nucs now may be your best bet. Our bee club is having it's talk Monday on splitting your hives now before the fall. I helped a fellow beek split a HUGE colony 2 weeks ago into 3 separate hives. I like the idea of going to nucs and wish I had done that to that monster. The weight factor should help you move them if nothing else.
I just watched Michael Palmer's talk on Queen Raising in the Sustainable Apiary. One great thing I got from that is making a shaker box for finding the queen. It's just a queen excluder nailed to the bottom of a deep with duct tape along the top inside. I seem to have a hard time finding her and this should solve that for me.
Good Luck
Thanks for the advise.
Here is some furthur info on my setup. I have eight hives setup side by side on two inline pipe stanchions that stand 18" off the ground with just enough spacing to set lids and tools down between them. If I stay in the same location to do the splits I would build another stanchion first, but won't the foragers keep returning to the original location?
I like the idea of nucs. I had considered it as I have five empty EZ Nucs in storage I could use temporarily. I guess it really depends on what the status of the brood and stores are as to how many splits to make.
Why three queens per box? Insurance?
No, I thought you wanted 3 queens to make a weaker split
and not 2 strong hives split. It is not 3 queens per box but only 1 needed; it is not 3 queens per hive. I
should have said to buy 3 queens, one queen for each split hive.
Sorry for the bad wording there!
Besides, dividing the hive into smaller nucs will tame their aggressiveness until the new gentle
queen is laying again. Imagine a nuc so average that not many guard bees could defend their hive.
From my experience that a hive will only turn aggressive, unless africanized, when it is strong enough to do so.
With a weak nuc there isn't many guard bees to do that. They are too busy trying
to keep their broods warm. That is why for the 3 queens and not 2 that you like. Six frames of bees and broods into a nuc hive is fairly strong too depending on how many bees and broods there are. An advantage of a weaker hive is for better queen acceptance versus a stronger hive which has the tendency to reject the new queen. I had to wrap the entire frame to introduce 2 queens into 2 strong hives. Still, one got killed so that they can make their own queens. I don't like it but some August queens would be nice too. If the new queens are not mated then I will recombine into 1 again for the Fall flow if there's any.
So check on the status of this hive to see how strong it is and split accordingly. Does this makes any sense?
Yes, some foragers will return to the original hive. That is why you make this hive a bit weaker by removing more frames of bees from it. The returning foragers will compensate for this weaker hive. Balance is the key for a successful split.
and not 2 strong hives split. It is not 3 queens per box but only 1 needed; it is not 3 queens per hive. I
should have said to buy 3 queens, one queen for each split hive.
Sorry for the bad wording there!
Besides, dividing the hive into smaller nucs will tame their aggressiveness until the new gentle
queen is laying again. Imagine a nuc so average that not many guard bees could defend their hive.
From my experience that a hive will only turn aggressive, unless africanized, when it is strong enough to do so.
With a weak nuc there isn't many guard bees to do that. They are too busy trying
to keep their broods warm. That is why for the 3 queens and not 2 that you like. Six frames of bees and broods into a nuc hive is fairly strong too depending on how many bees and broods there are. An advantage of a weaker hive is for better queen acceptance versus a stronger hive which has the tendency to reject the new queen. I had to wrap the entire frame to introduce 2 queens into 2 strong hives. Still, one got killed so that they can make their own queens. I don't like it but some August queens would be nice too. If the new queens are not mated then I will recombine into 1 again for the Fall flow if there's any.
So check on the status of this hive to see how strong it is and split accordingly. Does this makes any sense?
Yes, some foragers will return to the original hive. That is why you make this hive a bit weaker by removing more frames of bees from it. The returning foragers will compensate for this weaker hive. Balance is the key for a successful split.
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