Splitting late in season ..I got questions..You got advice ?

[denart]

A few weeks ago I captured a swarm at our baseball complex...they had to go kids,  bees, and baseball bats, seemed a little dangerous.
I captured the swarm , took them home, immediately found a hive and bought it.  But with my work schedule and ball season gone at 7am home 10:30pm left the bees seriously neglected, the bees had obviously been very busy, lots of bearding, I am sure they were getting ready to swarm, so i found a small super and put it on..a quick fix.  MAYBE!!
 I have two more supers on the way, along with bee clothing and misc equipment.
  This is what I need help with...my plans are to get two more hives and put a super on each one.  My idea is to split the hive into 3 hives, I dont expect any honey this season but would like to have about 6 hives by this spring. I also have a co-worker that is tearing down an old homeplace on his property that has a hive about 3 years old that I intend to capture in the very near future. Being as hard headed as I am this is my plan, and I'm sticking to it...I meed advice on how to make my chances of the splits as successful as possible.
  I seem to have gotten lucky the bees a re very gentle. I kept bees 30 years ago, but lost the bees when I went into the service. It seems many thing have changed since then.
  One last thing....this is a great site and i have spent much time on here.
Thanks Dennis

[denart]

I bought a super and frames and foundation from an pld timer  80 yrs old and a beekeeper for about 60 years....he suggested and gave me some of his mixture.   the mixture contains 1/3part garlic powder, 1/3 of a coupound he gets a a farm supply that contains 1% coumaphos, and 1/3 powdered sugar.
he said to sprinkle it on top of the frames and mite and SHB would be no problem. I havent tried it yet...I thought I would get a little advice here on that.
But, he seems to know his bees
Thanks,
Dennis

[latebee]

This is an ambitious plan for the first year. Splits are made a lot easier when you have empty drawn comb.If you try to use foundation without a good honeyflow going it can be rather difficult. You need new queens for the splits if they are later in the season. Take from the original colony-- try taking two frames of mainly capped brood,one of mostly open brood and two frames of honey,with all the bees(minus the original queen)that are on these combs.The remaining 5 frames can be foundation,but empty drawn comb is much better. The combs taken from the original colony must be in the middle of the new hive body.Introduce your new queen the same day.Put on a feeder with a 1 to 1 sugar syrup solution.Close it up and check it in 3 days(but not sooner) to see if the workers have accepted& freed the queen.Also I use an entrance reducer on my splits and a top feeder,it reduces robbing situations. There are many,many ways to do this other than this method.But I like it because nothing succeeds like success.Good luck! :)

[Brian D. Bray]

If you split the hives as latebee discribes then it is possible to do.  However doing so will require all the attention to be focused on getting the bees to the point to winter over.  In my area that is considered 2 deeps or 3 mediums.  Good luck.

[denart]

I do have access to frames of drawn comb, but wasn,t considering that...seems that i might just have to slow down a little...and...rethink my thinking.
Perhaps I should be content to capture a new hive from a friends house he is tearing down........sit back ...listen...ask questions...and learn..from experienced beekeepers....right here on this forum
Thanks soooo  Much
Dennis

[Ross]

I would only split the current hive one way.  In Texarkana, it will work.  We will have a fall flow on golden rod and aster starting in September.  I would wait until then or be prepared to feed for the next two months.  Actually, doing it now and feeding would be the best.  We can make queens successfully in this area until October, sometimes into November.  With the split and the cutout, you end up with 3 hives.  

Extractions (cutouts) this time of year can be "interesting".  The bees are hot and cranky.  Be carefull.

I would never put coumaphos in my hives under any conditions.  It ends up in the honey.  I use natural cell size, screened bottom boards, and if necessary, a summer treatment with OA.