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Split question help and robbing problem

857 Views 3 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  JimD, 
J
I did a deep dive yesterday and put 40 pounds of old honey in the two double deep hives I have.

This spring I killed a queen in February on a dive and had problems but did have a little luck and one queen cell both boxes ended up with queens. Anyway the old queen is not great so I decided I would make a walk away type split and have a third hive for more insurance. ;)

Grabbed some pollen from one hive several frames of capped brood and a frame of eggs and young brood from each and the frozen frame with the least honey and lots of open cell and frame feeder with a gallon of sugar water along with a couple of frames of shaken bees along with the bees on the two frames of eggs and brood.

Had a 1" opening and this am the box was under full attack from Robbers. Closed the front off but still lots of robbers. Looked and most of the bees were robbers and I did not want to lose all the larva and capped brood.

Poor weather here so I decided to just pull the super off the closest hive and dropped the new split on top of the second deep. I fig with all the robbers that I had a better chance of getting nurse bees to move up and take care of the larva instead of upsetting both hives trying to get more bees to shake with all the robbers.

Anyone tried this? Hate to keep going into hives but check tomorrow after the robbers leave and split out again? Split has two full frames of capped brood.

Any other suggestions or ideas?

Thanks,

Jim
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mtnmyke

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#2 ·
It can be hard to do splits during a dearth. If the bees aren't finding natural nectar they can be relentless at stealing it from other colonies.

As such, it really is best to split during a bloom so the foragers of the other hives are busy collecting nectar and not robbing.

If you do split during a dearth then make sure to shake in a LOT of nurse bees. You can use a robber type screen over the entrance to confuse the robbers - at least until the split is strong enough to fend for itself.

I typically like to take the queen away in a new split and place her somewhere with lots of resources. Leave the old hive to raise the new queen and as they have all the foragers and "guard" bees it's easier for them to defend it.
 
G3farms

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#3 ·
I second the robber screen, yep they work.
 
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J

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Discussion Starter · #4 ·
I have to take a look tomorrow. In the Houston area we have a lot of plants flowering. I put the frames of honey back in just to clear the freezer both hives had honey.
Plan to look at it tomorrow with the rainy weather we had. I hope to set it back up and see if the larva and brood made it the warm night with out nurse bees.

Be curious what is in the box now and if all is well. Will have to shake a lot more nurse bees.

We will see.
 
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