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Offline OldMech

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Mixed split?
« on: August 20, 2013, 02:20:05 am »

   I know its the wrong time of year to ask this, but wanted to ask while I thought of it, because I probably wont think of it again until spring;

   When doing splits, is it possible to combine frames from different hives INTO a Nuc/split, including the bees on those frames?

   For requeening?
   To raise their own queen?
   Or, will this incite bloodshed?

   What if the frames/Bees were sprayed down with sugar water dosed with honey bee healthy before they were combined?

   
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline sc-bee

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #1 on: August 20, 2013, 02:26:55 am »
Combine the bees/ frames from at least three different hives. Two seem to fight 3 seem to be confused.
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Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2013, 10:21:04 am »
Agreed.  When it's from three they tend to be confused.  You can add some confusion with a lot of smoke.
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Offline OldMech

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #3 on: August 20, 2013, 10:28:18 am »
Three...   Interesting! It never occurred to me that three would work better than two.
    Thank you. When the time comes, I will give it a try.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline hjon71

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #4 on: August 20, 2013, 11:36:20 am »
Any benefit from a mixed split?
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Offline sc-bee

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #5 on: August 20, 2013, 03:36:53 pm »
Any benefit from a mixed split?
I learn so much here:-)

Keep from depleting one source hive. Or control swarming of parent hives by taking bees, a couple of frames from it and add frames from other hives to get a full box. Or want to increase number of hives and don't want to do even splits because you want to keep numbers up for honey crop.
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Offline OldMech

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2013, 04:12:21 pm »

Keep from depleting one source hive. Or control swarming of parent hives by taking bees, a couple of frames from it and add frames from other hives to get a full box. Or want to increase number of hives and don't want to do even splits because you want to keep numbers up for honey crop.



   Exactly what I was thinking about. I want to propagate the feral queens I have. I realize their genetics will probably be more mixed in their daughters, but I want to try. I do not want to cut down the hives strength more than necessary to control swarming, while gaining/keeping the genetics of the local bees. So I hope to use swarm cells/frames from those feral hives, and frames from my Italian's/Carny's without cutting the numbers down so far that they wont produce honey.
 IF.... that works, and I will find out if it does, I can gain four or five hives without losing too much strength in the existing colonies, add to those with captured swarms from the eight feral hives I now know of, and I will be well on my way to the 40 - 50 hives I eventually intend on having within the next five years, and I wont have to buy outside queens to do it.
  I will admit, that I am considering re queening with Russians or other resistant (northern) bees on a few hives to add their drones to the fly zones...
     Heh, yeah, big plans for one little country boy, but it will sure be fun trying!
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline hjon71

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2013, 04:25:16 pm »
40-50 hives :chop: sounds like work....
Quite difficult matters can be explained even to a slow-witted man, if only he has not already adopted a wrong opinion about them; but the simplest things cannot be made clear even to a very intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, and knows indubitably, the truth of the matter under consideration. -Leo Tolstoy

Offline sc-bee

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #8 on: August 20, 2013, 04:38:17 pm »
Not to hi jack the thread but I wonder about the hype of the Russian program. You get a queen from a supposed Russian source and I know some of the breeders open mate their queens not inseminated. Then it is open mated in your yard, Just really don't know?
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Offline OldMech

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #9 on: August 20, 2013, 04:43:40 pm »
Hi Jack away, excellent question!!


  Yeah Hjon.. it will probably be work, but I do enjoy it a lot.  200 hives would be work, 50 should be enough to keep me busy a little longer..  having only a few leaves me wanting more, too much time to stare at them, and force myself to leave them alone...  I tried to just sit, and pet the ones that landed on me, but they took exception to being petted, not unlike a cantankerous cat.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline sc-bee

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #10 on: August 20, 2013, 05:01:19 pm »
There are a few other folks on here more into the scientific end of beekeeping and call tell you how many generations the genetics of the Russian would pass down and be of benefit in your yard.

I know for a fact some Russian breeders open mate their queens and are in the Russian bee program. So how huge an area would you have to have isolated to actually have a russian queen. How far does the DCA extend. Several mile radius but maybe closer to 1 or 1 1/2? I'm have no idea but large. So from the get go if your queen is not an artificial insemination from pure start you are behind the eight ball from the beginning.

Then when your new queen mates in your yard? How much land do you own. Well I can't see the queen being considered Russian long. But how long to the traits carry down as in varroa resistance etc. If it gives some resistance in your bees then it is worth it. I will admit I have bought a few that a queen producer calls Russian hybrids. At least this is up front on what you are getting.

The original USDA program i think was isolated on an island in La. Not sure but I am sure others will pick up on this thread and correct me in my errs  :-D I am not slamming the program. If they are certified Russian Breeders they hold strict standards. They have a set number of lines they have color coded to reference. Each breeder gets bees from a certain color code to maintain. Then they swap the lines between each other to keep up with the lines and diversity.

Here is a well know Russian breeders web page. Read his recommendations on keeping Russian yards separate from others:
http://www.revisrussians.com/

Stick with local proven queens if you can.
« Last Edit: August 20, 2013, 05:13:12 pm by sc-bee »
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Offline OldMech

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #11 on: August 20, 2013, 05:19:52 pm »
I understand exactly what your saying, however...   In understanding that I also have Carnys and Italians, neither of which are as good in colder climates as the feral, (especially the Italians) nor are they considered resistant stock, what would I have to lose by re queening them with Russians or VSH breeding stock suitable for cold climates until I could get all the LOCAL queens I need? Would ANY of that resistance cross over and make the local bees more hardy and mite capable?


  Hardy honey bees from the mite-infested Primorski region of Russia's Far East may also offer natural genetic resistance that could be bred into U.S. honey bees.
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #12 on: August 22, 2013, 11:35:33 pm »

Keep from depleting one source hive. Or control swarming of parent hives by taking bees, a couple of frames from it and add frames from other hives to get a full box. Or want to increase number of hives and don't want to do even splits because you want to keep numbers up for honey crop.



   Exactly what I was thinking about. I want to propagate the feral queens I have. I realize their genetics will probably be more mixed in their daughters, but I want to try. I do not want to cut down the hives strength more than necessary to control swarming, while gaining/keeping the genetics of the local bees. So I hope to use swarm cells/frames from those feral hives, and frames from my Italian's/Carny's without cutting the numbers down so far that they wont produce honey.

Using a frame or 2 from 3 or more hives is a good way to build a full hive of bees without really splitting any hive.  Taking the frames from the brood chamber and replacing them with frames of foundation serves to open the brood chamber making them draw comb.  The newly created hive is the equivalent of a single brood chamber in size but it can be jump started even better with the frames from the various hives are split between two brood chambers with a number of frames of foundation in each box.  Bees like to build up much better than they build out so by using 2 boxes they are going up and manipulating the frames helps them build out.  This method increases the brood chamber twice as fast as doing it the old tried and true method.

Quote
IF.... that works, and I will find out if it does, I can gain four or five hives without losing too much strength in the existing colonies, add to those with captured swarms from the eight feral hives I now know of, and I will be well on my way to the 40 - 50 hives I eventually intend on having within the next five years, and I wont have to buy outside queens to do it.
  I will admit, that I am considering re queening with Russians or other resistant (northern) bees on a few hives to add their drones to the fly zones...
     Heh, yeah, big plans for one little country boy, but it will sure be fun trying!

If you have feral stock they are most likely survivor stock as well, meaning they are acclimated to your area.  This is especially true if the  bees are smaller than your domestic stock.  Instead of re-queening bring in some Russian stock to create a hybrid cross.  A queen will mate with as many as 10 drones per mating flight and up to 30 drones overall, but usually only mate 5-6 times per flight. 
My hives are a cross of Italian, Russian, and Carniolan bees, I use Russian queens to grow more Russian queens and then let them mate with My Carniolan drones and Italian drones from the other beekeepers in the area. 
I have queens that have brood chambers of 6 medium 8 frame boxes before I get to the honey supers.
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Offline OldMech

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #13 on: August 24, 2013, 01:46:52 am »
Using a frame or 2 from 3 or more hives is a good way to build a full hive of bees without really splitting any hive.  Taking the frames from the brood chamber and replacing them with frames of foundation serves to open the brood chamber making them draw comb.  The newly created hive is the equivalent of a single brood chamber in size but it can be jump started even better with the frames from the various hives are split between two brood chambers with a number of frames of foundation in each box.  Bees like to build up much better than they build out so by using 2 boxes they are going up and manipulating the frames helps them build out.  This method increases the brood chamber twice as fast as doing it the old tried and true method.

  So.. Instead of creating a single brood box, your saying to do a double, but checkerboard the frames between both boxes? Or put them into the correct order, brood in center honey to outside etc, just do it in two brood chambers instead of one?
   Manipulating the frames. moving stores out and moving empty frames in?

If you have feral stock they are most likely survivor stock as well, meaning they are acclimated to your area.  This is especially true if the  bees are smaller than your domestic stock.  Instead of re-queening bring in some Russian stock to create a hybrid cross.  A queen will mate with as many as 10 drones per mating flight and up to 30 drones overall, but usually only mate 5-6 times per flight. 
My hives are a cross of Italian, Russian, and Carniolan bees, I use Russian queens to grow more Russian queens and then let them mate with My Carniolan drones and Italian drones from the other beekeepers in the area. 
I have queens that have brood chambers of 6 medium 8 frame boxes before I get to the honey supers.

   Yes, they are smaller bees. Not by a lot but enough to be noticeable. The beekeepers I have spoken with in the area go to great lengths to catch the swarms and swear by them. Having some myself I can understand why. Despite being feral, they are easier to handle and work with and lack very little in comparison.
 
   Do you notice any difference in the crosses you have as far as resistance to Varoa and other diseases? have you found it worthwhile to get Russians to cross?
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2013, 07:39:57 am »
Old Mech,
Most of my hives are from feral stock. I think 2 of my hives are from my original hives. With using dry oil pans, I can see the mite drop in all of the hives except for a nuc. Only the original 2 hives have a mite problem and they seem to do fine and that is with no treatments of any kind. One of the 2 hives with mites was my biggest honey producer this spring. I find very few mites in the pans after 7 days in all but the 2 original hives. If you can get feral hives, stick with them, they have already proved they can survive with out all of the chemical treatments.
Jim
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Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #15 on: August 28, 2013, 10:49:22 pm »
Using a frame or 2 from 3 or more hives is a good way to build a full hive of bees without really splitting any hive.  Taking the frames from the brood chamber and replacing them with frames of foundation serves to open the brood chamber making them draw comb.  The newly created hive is the equivalent of a single brood chamber in size but it can be jump started even better with the frames from the various hives are split between two brood chambers with a number of frames of foundation in each box.  Bees like to build up much better than they build out so by using 2 boxes they are going up and manipulating the frames helps them build out.  This method increases the brood chamber twice as fast as doing it the old tried and true method.

 
Quote
So.. Instead of creating a single brood box, your saying to do a double, but checkerboard the frames between both boxes?


Bee always build up must better and faster than they build out. To take advantage of that characteristic it is better to use 2 brood boxes when doing a split, placing the brood frames in top box directly over the brood frames in the other box.

Quote
Or put them into the correct order, brood in center honey to outside etc, just do it in two brood chambers instead of one?

If you take  2 frames of brood from 3 different hives place one frame of brood from each hive in each box.  It is best use a mix of eggs, larva, and capped brood.  The cap brood will have mostly emerged in about a week after the split forcing bees onto additional frames.  At that time, when the population has expanded, separate the brood frames by checker-boarding.

 
Quote
 Manipulating the frames. moving stores out and moving empty frames in?

That is correct, frames of stores always occur at the edges of the brood chamber so moving those frames outside and moving foundation inside opens up the brood chamber and the new frames will be constructed as brood frames.

If you have feral stock they are most likely survivor stock as well, meaning they are acclimated to your area.  This is especially true if the  bees are smaller than your domestic stock.  Instead of re-queening bring in some Russian stock to create a hybrid cross.  A queen will mate with as many as 10 drones per mating flight and up to 30 drones overall, but usually only mate 5-6 times per flight. 
My hives are a cross of Italian, Russian, and Carniolan bees, I use Russian queens to grow more Russian queens and then let them mate with My Carniolan drones and Italian drones from the other beekeepers in the area. 
I have queens that have brood chambers of 6 medium 8 frame boxes before I get to the honey supers.

Quote
   Yes, they are smaller bees. Not by a lot but enough to be noticeable. The beekeepers I have spoken with in the area go to great lengths to catch the swarms and swear by them. Having some myself I can understand why. Despite being feral, they are easier to handle and work with and lack very little in comparison.
 
Do you notice any difference in the crosses you have as far as resistance to Varoa and other diseases? have you found it worthwhile to get Russians to cross?

Yes and Yes.  The Russians resistance to Varroa pass to the next several generations (I'm on my 5th generation and the Varroa resistance is still present) and they seem hardier against Nosema and most other bee diseases including foulbrood.
The Three way cross has the industry of the Italian bee, the caution of protecting stores and disease resistance of the Russian bee, and the gentleness of the Carniolan bee. Just Crossing the Russian with the Italian seems to make the cross a bit testy until the Carniolan is introduced.
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Offline BeeDog

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #16 on: December 15, 2013, 10:39:15 am »
The most successful splits I had was with mixing bees/frames from different colonies. I get sealed brood frames from my strongest colonies and put them in a nuc box. I spray every frame (with lotsa bees in it) with sugar/vanilla syrup. The vanilla aroma helps minimize the scent of pheromone of queens from their original colonies and the sugar in the syrup keeps them busy eating. Then I smoke the hive and close the entrance with wire net to prevent them from coming out... I do this when the sun is setting and almost dark. I wait for 12 hours and in the morning I remove the wire net in the entrance and viola! A new queenless colony.. then will I introduce a queen using push in method. And after a week or so I have a new queenright hive!
 8-)

It is highly recommend that split be done with only strong healthy hives that have at least two Brood Chambers with Brood in all stages of development. Frames with capped Brood should be split evenly between the two hives.

Offline 10framer

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #17 on: December 15, 2013, 02:12:54 pm »
if you want to build up fast but still get a honey crop why not set up several 5 frame nucs with a couple of frames from each hive you want to pull from and three frames of foundation right at the start of the honey flow?  by the end of the season they should have had time to build up to a hive capable of wintering (possibly with some help) and your other hives are set back enough to think they have swarmed but can still produce a surplus?  that will move you toward your goal of 50 a lot faster and still let you have a certain amount of control over your genetics.  if you have five now and planned on one full sized split by making the nucs instead you can have ten full sized hives by the end of the season.  if there is one queen in particular you want daughters from cut queen cells from the frames in her hive and distribute them to the other hives.  i'd move the queens into the nucs if i were you just to let a few days with no queen pheromones add to the feeling of having swarmed.  you  lose production of one hive (the split) this year to gain production of 4 more next year and a chance to do ten splits.  
you could have your 50 hives in 4 years or less if you are willing to split hives twice in a season and take less honey on the front end (being up north may not make that as much of an option as it is down here).

Offline richter1978

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #18 on: December 15, 2013, 03:04:32 pm »
Old Mech,
Most of my hives are from feral stock. I think 2 of my hives are from my original hives. With using dry oil pans, I can see the mite drop in all of the hives except for a nuc. Only the original 2 hives have a mite problem and they seem to do fine and that is with no treatments of any kind. One of the 2 hives with mites was my biggest honey producer this spring. I find very few mites in the pans after 7 days in all but the 2 original hives. If you can get feral hives, stick with them, they have already proved they can survive with out all of the chemical treatments.
Jim

Sorry, quick thread hijack.
sawdstmakr, curious if your bees are on foundation?  Some of my ferals are and they seem to have more of a mite problem than the ones that are not.  Do your tf bees have many "crawlers" or DWV?

Back to the thread,  I like this idea about taking what you need from several hives.  I will do this in the spring!

Offline OldMech

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Re: Mixed split?
« Reply #19 on: December 15, 2013, 11:02:55 pm »
10Framer..  the idea was to GET splits without depopulating honey producing hives..   By mixing the bees/frames from different hives I dont have to remove nearly as much.. I get to open up their brood chambers a bit without cutting into their ability to produce, and I still get a few extra hives.. to increase, or to replace winter loss.. OR BOTH!!!    :-D
39 Hives and growing.  Havent found the end of the comfort zone yet.

 

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