[ilivetobealive]

So I've pretty much mastered the "art" of making more bees, but this was only due to necessity.

Due to some neglect of my bees this spring and some rather prolific queens, I was able to turn 2 hives into...9! Granted, 3 of those were with new queens as I had ordered BEFORE I realized I had this problem, but the resources for those queens all came from the parent hives. I could do two more splits if I used all the frames with queen cells. I ran out of nuc boxes and two of the nucs have two frames with queen cells. I built more nucs and might split them tomorrow so there is one frame with a capped queen cell in each nuc. Although I'll be removing 9-11 frames of brood from the two parent hives, this wasn't enough to even make a ding in what she's been doing in there. In less than a week the girls have drawn out more comb and the queens are filling it as fast as they can....crazy. I also placed a frame of mixed honey/nectar/bee bread per nuc per standard protocol.

My question, however, is mastering the art of honey making. I was told that once all my new queens start laying I could place frames of brood back into the older parent hives that I hope to use for honey production. This will get their numbers up fairly quickly and more bees = more foragers = more honey.

I was also told to move any frames with honey up to my honey super (I used deeps for everything) and placing all the brood on the two bottom boxes? This of course done and organized accordingly when moving brood from the "new" hives.

Any other tips and tricks to both keep your hive from swarming AND producing lots and lots of honey? We have a major nectar flow just starting and I'm wanting to take full advantage.


The two hives on the right of the stand, two deeps tall, are the parent hives...ALL other hives/nucs are result of queen cells/new queens. The one hive on the ground I'll be moving to a nuc in the morning since the next round of DIY nuc's sealant will be cured.

 

[HoneybeesinJapan]

I just did my first " cut down split". This is a procedure I read about to produce a lot of honey for a specific time. A cut down split is done by moving a prolific queen from a strong hive you think might swarm or a hive you want to make a honey production hive.
The split is done by moving all the open brood, honey, pollen and all but one frame of eggs from the strong parent hive to a new box. The parent hive is left with only emerging bees, sealed brood and one frame of eggs from which they will make a new queen. When the split is completed the parent hive has no queen and no open brood to take care of. The nurse bees don't have larva to feed and will start making lots of wax. They will draw out frames of foundation quickly and will become foregers faster than normal. This increases your field force and the foregers go into overdrive collecting honey. The only thing you must be sure of is that you do this split at the beginning of a honey flow.

I have just done this split. Last year I got 4 Kilos of Sakura (Cherry blossom) honey. This year with this split I'm on track right now to get 15 to 20 kilos of this honey! I also have a new queen. I saw her piping yesterday, and I broke the brood cycle which clears out all the mites. I love this split!

 

[HoneybeesinJapan]

By the way, I really like your hive arrangement and your hive stand. Nice.

 

[bevy's honeybees]

I just did my first " cut down split". This is a procedure I read about to produce a lot of honey for a specific time. A cut down split is done by moving a prolific queen from a strong hive you think might swarm or a hive you want to make a honey production hive.
The split is done by moving all the open brood, honey, pollen and all but one frame of eggs from the strong parent hive to a new box. The parent hive is left with only emerging bees, sealed brood and one frame of eggs from which they will make a new queen. When the split is completed the parent hive has no queen and no open brood to take care of. The nurse bees don't have larva to feed and will start making lots of wax. They will draw out frames of foundation quickly and will become foregers faster than normal. This increases your field force and the foregers go into overdrive collecting honey. The only thing you must be sure of is that you do this split at the beginning of a honey flow.

I came here this morning to look this exact thing up, how to make a split tol create a hive that will be high honey producer. I missed it for orange blossom but we are going into saw palmetto, and gallberry is on now. Where did you find this info? I also thought I would keep the super drawn comb so they can start storing- maybe more than half so they use all nectar to store, not build comb. But then there's the deep box, where they will need to draw comb again for brood when the queen emerges. So isn't it better to have a good amount of drawn comb already, if the goal is honey production?

I did something like this at one of my hives on Wednesday. Out of the brood I pulled 2 frames open and capped brood, and one honey/nectar/pollen and put it in nuk, did that 2 times. Parent box, I put in drawn and undrawn frames, and supered with box of about half honey and empty comb.Both nuks are 10 feet from parent hive, so foragers go back to parent hive. My goal is new queen and high honey production.

I couldn't remember the exact process for a high honey hive, so I'm glad you posted this before I try it again on another hive. Any links where I can get any missed details?

 

[HoneybeesinJapan]

I first learned of the cut down split here on Beesource from Michael Bush. Then I did a search on the net and found this link from Honeybeesuite.com
http://www.honeybeesuite.com/how-to-make-a-cut-down-split-2/
Hope this helps.

 

[Michael Bush]

If you want a split and more honey, a cut down split is a good plan.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#cutdown

If you don't want another hive and you just want the same number but maximum honey try a cutdown/combine:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#cutdowncombine