Beginner: Bee math for split + acid treatment for weekend beek

[ugcheleuce]

[also posted in UK forum]

Hello everyone

My bee math is terrible, so could anyone please confirm my calculations for the split and varroa treatment that I consider doing?

I have a colony consisting of two brood boxes and I would like to split it using what I think is called a walk-away split (i.e. put a queen excluder between the brood boxes, wait for the brood to close in one of the boxes, and then split the hive and put a new caged queen into the queenless box (or a frame with eggs/larvae)).  Or what do you call this type of split in English?

The current queen is unmarked and I have had trouble finding her, hence the queen excluder method.  We treat varroa using acid.

Because I'm a weekend beekeeper I can only perform hive activities on two consecutive days of the week, every seven days.  In my case, those days are Sunday and Monday.

Here's the math for using a caged queen:

Monday, day 0: place queen excluder
Monday, day 7: break all queen cells, if any
Monday, day 14: split colony (A with old queen, B with new caged queen)
Tuesday, day 22: (last possible workers emerge from colony B)
Friday, day 25: (last possible drones emerge from colony B)
Sunday or Monday, day 27 or 28: start varroa treatment in colony B
Wednesday, day 30: (earliest possible closed brood in colony B)

Here's the math for not using a caged queen:

Monday, day 0: place queen excluder
Monday, day 7: break all queen cells, if any
Monday, day 14: split colony (A with old queen, B with 1 frame of eggs/larvae)
Monday, day 21: break all queen cells in colony B, except one
Tuesday, day 22: (last possible workers emerge from colony B)
Thursday, day 24: (earliest possible queen emerge in colony B)
Friday, day 25: (last possible drones emerge from colony B)
Sunday or Monday, day 27 or 28: start varroa treatment in colony B
Monday, day 28: (latest possible queen emerge in colony B)

Could someone here with better bee math skills tell me whether this is correct?  This scheme does not specify when I'll be doing varroa treatment for colony A, but that's a separate issue.

Thanks
Samuel

[jayj200]

Sam
do you have varoa?

I would not treat unless you have the mites
jay

[ugcheleuce]

Do you have varoa?  I would not treat unless you have the mites.

Around here, beekeepers treat for varroa whenever they get a broodless period, even if they don't know whether they actually have the mite.

[jayj200]

the brood-less time is the control for varaoa

[RayMarler]

Your math looks pretty good to me. Good luck!