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Three of my hives were wintered over by adding a third deep super. The reason I did this is because I noticed upon my fall inspections that one of my hives and lost the Queen. As it was full of funny, I split and used the paper method to add to my two strongest colonies I’m glad I did this, because they made it through the hard winter.
Now I must split them. Wednesday is one of the first fair-weather opportunities I will have that coincides with available time to split with help of a friend. The conditions here in New York are still not optimal with regards to temperatures. Wednesday’s forecast highs are projected in the mid-sixties, partly cloudy, and 5 mile an hour winds.
My first question: is this too cold to attempt a split?
Secondly, these hives have been rotated only once, with the top deep supers now on the bottom for the last two weeks or so. As I’m only splitting one of my hives to accommodate my friends (the other splits will simply be walk away splits, and likely be done this Friday when the temperature is projected to be 75°), I intend that Wednesday afternoon making two starter nukes for him and possibly one more for another customer, what would be the best practice be for trying to split such a large 3 Deep super colony?
As the weather has been consistently less than optimal here in the Finger Lakes, I have been relatively hands-off in regards to digging into these strong hives. All looked excellent when I rotated the deep supers, and all are now treated with the last of the ApiLife Var. At last look, again over two weeks ago, I did not see any swarm cells. As I will want swarm cells for my splits my question is where will I likely find swarm cells, on the top super, bottom super, or all three? If I do not see them I would certainly make sure there is some fresh eggs on some of the frames.
Now I must split them. Wednesday is one of the first fair-weather opportunities I will have that coincides with available time to split with help of a friend. The conditions here in New York are still not optimal with regards to temperatures. Wednesday’s forecast highs are projected in the mid-sixties, partly cloudy, and 5 mile an hour winds.
My first question: is this too cold to attempt a split?
Secondly, these hives have been rotated only once, with the top deep supers now on the bottom for the last two weeks or so. As I’m only splitting one of my hives to accommodate my friends (the other splits will simply be walk away splits, and likely be done this Friday when the temperature is projected to be 75°), I intend that Wednesday afternoon making two starter nukes for him and possibly one more for another customer, what would be the best practice be for trying to split such a large 3 Deep super colony?
As the weather has been consistently less than optimal here in the Finger Lakes, I have been relatively hands-off in regards to digging into these strong hives. All looked excellent when I rotated the deep supers, and all are now treated with the last of the ApiLife Var. At last look, again over two weeks ago, I did not see any swarm cells. As I will want swarm cells for my splits my question is where will I likely find swarm cells, on the top super, bottom super, or all three? If I do not see them I would certainly make sure there is some fresh eggs on some of the frames.