splitting

[Summerbee]

Ok, Iam going to split my hive this week, and take five frames from my original hive and stick them in a another deep super.  My question is - if you don't have access to a queen breeder, can you just let the new hive raise their own?  I mean, they'd be queenless, so wouldn't they start building queen cells?  It would be a virgin queen of course, and there is the chance she would get lost or eaten on her mating flight.  Would the bees stay in the new hive w/out a queen, or would they leave to the old one (only a couple of feet away)?  I figure that they would stay, because the brood would be there.  Rather than starting a nuc and raising a queen to stick in this artificial swarm.

  Also, where do you recommend placing the new hive?  I was thinking that it would be nice to have all of my hives centralized, you know all in one spot.  But then if you have them all in a line then disease can spread from one to the next.  Should I keep them centralized or spread out over my five acres?

[Chad S]

Your going to have trouble with the bees on the split frames returning to the origional hive.  I have not had much luck with the whole brush thing.    If you do a split put the split at another site for a few weeks so they can get things figure out.  If you have eggs on frames 1-4 days old you can raise a queen.  The question is where will she find drones to mate with.  Do you want to breed her back to her own off spring.  You are much better off forking over the $18.00 for a queen and get her working day one than wait 21 days for a queen that may or may not be a producer.

Chad

[bayareaartist]

I have created a split right next to the hive I split from.

What I would recommend is this.
Take 5 frames of bees if what you have is a single box.
If it is a two super hive you can split the box.

But I will speak about a single brood box.

Look through the frames and find the queen.
Take the queen and the frame right next to her, one at a time and put these in the new hive body. She is between two frames with bees she knows.
Now look through and find a frame of honey and pollen,
Put this in the new hive.

Now what is going to happen is that the old hive will create queen cells.
So you have to leave some brood and eggs.

Basically try to divide up the 10 frames equally.

Keep all five frames together in both boxes, do not feed empty frames into the frame group. This is to keep the cluster warmer.

So you now have two boxes with 5 frames of bees/brood/pollen/honey stores in each.
The queen is in the new hive.
I put a feeder on the new hive and feed 2 quarts of 2-1 water-sugar. What I have found to work great are the quart paint cans from home depot and I put three staples in each lid, pry the staple out and fill it with syrup and raise it up with about ½-1” sticks off the frames with the lid and holes facing down. Then put another empty brood box on. I like this, the syrup is on top of the frames keeping the ants away and it also keeps the syrup from heating up in the sun.
I leave this for a week.
I go back checking the new hive for the queen and to see if she has started to lay.
I then look at the old hive and there will be the majority of bees in this hive.
I then look for the queen cells and If I see any that is great news. If the strong hive does what it is supposed to do they made a whole bunch of queen cells.

To bulk up the new hive you can also take two frames of bees from the original hive and shake them down into the new hive. That will give the new hive more nurse bees and the ones that do not want to be there will fly home.

I have done this method twice and it works great. The new hive gets a laying queen to build up faster and the old hive has all the workers. You can bulk up by shaking nurse bees. Do not feed the old hive sugar water. You have to check and make sure the frames are not getting plugged up with nectar, and if you feed them syrup the syrup they do not use they will store so when the new queen emerges she will not have that much room to lay. Causing problems. With a large worker force the bees should be able to feed themselves.

And in the end if the old hive does not create a queen use the newspaper joining technique and bring the two hives together until the boxes get strong enough to split again.

Or with a strong hive you could take 6 frames of brood and pollen and bees leaving four with the queen in the old hive and she will just go right on ahead laying and the field force will go to work on the 6 new frames. Making a new hive out of 6 frames of bees that will make their own queen and having all that brood they will be fine.

The two brood box method is based on having a hive that is comprised of two brood boxes.
It is similar to above but what you are going to do is set the stand where you want it.
Just take the top box off and place it on the new stand and place a new empty brood chamber on top put the lid on and let it go. Place a new empty brood box on the original hive then put the lid on.
This works great if you have a real strong hive. If the hive is not that strong then maybe do not do the split or go thru the hive making sure the new hive has a great amount of brood frames and nurse bees. For this split I would leave the queen in the old hive then you can feed in frames of brood to the new hive if need be and shake bees in if you feel you need to expand the amount of bees. The new queenless hive will produce queens cells and in no time you will have a laying queen.

And of course I have probably done it all wrong but it has worked for me. Nature is pretty powerful and the bees just seem to take care of themselves. Split the frames and they will make a new queen.

[bayareaartist]

Take that nice bee brush and throw it in a box in your garage and forget about it. Don't even get it near a bee.

I used a brush when I started and I will tell you I have never been stung in my gloves so much as when I used a brush.
I think my bees would react better to me dropping a frame vs. brushing them.

If you want to get bees into another place/hive, shake the bees.

Take the frame and hold it by the ears/tabs whatever you want to call them.
Hold the from 6 to 12" above the place you want to shake the bees to, lift up and jerk down then stop and the majority of bees will land on the frames in the box you are trying to put them in. Shake again and I bet you will have a half dozen bees left with not a one trying to sacrifice themselves up against the brush.

[bayareaartist]

Number one, I think it was the coolest thing to watch my hive create queencells and then I was there to watch her emerge.
Purchasing has it’s plus’s and minuses but there is rejection.
And a virgin queen your hive created will find drones.
Where I am at we have so many feral hives around.

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm