[bluescorpion]

I have a hive that is simply bursting with bees. The hive consists of three deeps and 1 mid. The top deep and the mid are full of honey (and bees). What I'm thinking about doing is taking 1 of the deeps and moving it to another location to start another hive.

My question is, do I need to have another queen to place in the deep that I move or will the bees just make another queen? Also, how far away should i move the deep? from the parent hive? Any input is greatly appreciated.

 

[drlonzo]

Normally speaking, yes you can break apart your hive split it down and make another colony. The real question is if you want that new colony to produce their own queen or if you want to buy one and introduce to the split. It takes about 30 days total to have them make a new queen and get her up and running. This brood break is actually a good method to keep down populations of varroa mites. However if concerned about making more honey, putting a mated queen in is the way to go. You only need to make sure that you have frames with eggs in each split so they can make their own queen.

Now for how far away you need to go. The thought of taking them down the road 2 miles is bull. This only applies if you are trying to make sure what foragers are in the split stay with it. All the nurse bees will stay with the brood in the box. So don't worry and park the new split a few feet away or right next to it for that matter. They will sort things out and all will be fine. I done splits this spring making NUC's and placed them within 50 feet of each other. NO Problems at all..

 

[bluescorpion]

That's what I was thinking drlonzo, but I wanted to make sure before losing a good, strong hive. Thanks... :thumbsup:

 

[enjambres]

I made a divide-the-hive split last week and the distance apart is zero as the original hive and the new box (the one with the queen) are touching each other. Both boxes have foragers and newly-orienting bees, though the queen-right one has more at the moment. I made no effort to try to equalize the populations while doing the split. I was just focused on dividing them and making sure that both had the means to retain, or replace, the queen and care for the open and capped brood (nectar, honey, pollen stores, etc.). So far, it appears to have worked, but I haven't been back in to look, yet. I had no desire to maintain honey-production capacity, and my main flow has not started, yet. Your season is much more advanced (and different) from mine.

While a brood break may help with mites, don't think that it will solve the mite problem for the year. Keeping monitoring!

Enj.

 

[Chemguy]

I agree with drlonzo and enjambres. I made my first splits this year by moving the queen to a nuc with brood and stores, then allowing the parent hive to draw queen cells. A week later, the cells were used to make up 5 nucs (minus laying queen, of course) All were right next to each other on the same bench. I only noticed drift away from the parent, and I used this to my advantage by moving the less-stocked nucs on the end of the bench right next to the parent hive. That way, drift served to increase the population of a diminished nuc. Once all were stable (less than a week) I moved most of the nucs to a location about 50 feet away. I did not notice any loss of bees from the nucs.

I'll ask you to consider one possible outcome, and this may be a good reason to get your hands on a queen. The parent hive that I split was chock full of bees in the middle of a good honeyflow. While they were queenless, they filled up 2 deeps and 2 mediums with honey....from the top to the bottom. In under two weeks. Every frame, both sides. Now I am awaiting a queen hatch in that hive and there is nowhere for her to roam or lay once she is mated. I am doing my best to avoid swarming, and have managed to use the last of my drawn comb in an effort to provide more space. The splits used up my resources, the parent filled theirs, and I had not thought about that in advance as fully as I should have. As they say: Experience is what you get right after you need it.

 

[sterling]

I have a hive that is simply bursting with bees. The hive consists of three deeps and 1 mid. The top deep and the mid are full of honey (and bees). What I'm thinking about doing is taking 1 of the deeps and moving it to another location to start another hive.

My question is, do I need to have another queen to place in the deep that I move or will the bees just make another queen? Also, how far away should i move the deep? from the parent hive? Any input is greatly appreciated.

Do you still have a flow going on? If so why would you want to split a strong hive during the flow? If not you can do a walk away split. Give them a queen or not either way can work. But again I wouldn't split as long as they are storing honey.