early splits

[bailey]

need opinions from the group!

i made 2 splits today! here are the details.

went to 2 strong hives and did an inspection.
found capped brood and capped drones in the bottom boxes, both of the bottom boxes were full of brood.
went to the upper boxes that were new looking comb and found capped brood,young larvae and eggs in good numbers.
i had drones scattered in these hives but no queen cells as of yet.

i make 4 frame swarm boxes for  swarm trapping and decided to use them for making walk away splits.
i am guessing that by pulling only 4 frames from a strong hive they wont really be set back very far.
these are medium frame swarm traps.

the splits were made as described below.
i pulled 1 frame of nectar/honey and put it in the box. i then pulled 1 frame of capped brood and put that in the box. then i put 2 frames of eggs and small larvae from the new looking comb in the upper box so they could make queen cells without having to work old stiff wax.

i then moved the parent hive over 1 space and put the split in it,s place.  i then blocked off the the parent hive to force the field bees into the splits.
this was done in the afternoon to assure a good workforce to be in the field.
i will open the parent hives back up after dark tonight.

anyone see any flaws in this?
please chime in with any and all opinions!

thanks
Bailey

[JP]

All sounds fine to me. Next week will be doing the same. Bees have been building up strong as of late and I'm seeing lots and lots of brood as well, starting to see drones too.


...JP

[bailey]

i am thinking that there will be plenty of drones by the time they make and hatch a new queen.
the drone brood should hatch well in advance of the new queens.
thanks
bailey

[justgojumpit]

sounds good to me. enjoy the new hives!

justgojumpit

[iddee]

You did not mention the queens. Did you locate them to ensure they stayed in the parent hive, or are you just hoping?

[Brian D. Bray]

You did not mention the queens. Did you locate them to ensure they stayed in the parent hive, or are you just hoping?

He pulled the frames individually from the parent hive so I'm sure that he inspected each frame for the queen.  The method used is a standard and usually very successful.

[bailey]

looked very closely for the queen. i didnt find them but i know they werent in the split.

i shook all of the bees off and then placed an empty drawn comb back into the parent hive, allowed bees to climb back on and inspected the newly filled frame.
i then shook those bees into the split.
shouldnt have the queen in the split unless i really screwed up.

bailey

[rast]

 The difference in area's and bee behavior and climate acclimatization still fascinates and at times confuses me. I don't have any drones flying yet, but my hives are really growing now. Pollen was "flying" in today. I don't know whether to split any before or after the citrus. I haven't pulled any frames in a few weeks. Just the covers off and picked up the second box and looked. Weather has not cooperated when I have been off work.

[iddee]

>>>>The method used is a standard and usually very successful.<<<<

Yes, I know, but I also know the queen can be very elusive. I would check in about five days for eggs and queen cells in all four hives. Just as a precaution.

[jimmy]

Bailey ,I am on the North Shore @ Franklinton, you have a flow on already ? Or does one not have to have a flow?My bees are building up but we still having 30ish nights here. Jimmy. Are you going to have early queens for sale?

[bailey]

jimmy.
we seem to have a small flow going on but it is not a large volume.
the white clover is in bloom here, our nights are a little warmer than the north shore but not by a great deal. my splitting at this early stage is for 2 reasons.

first is that we will be having swarms here by the first of march if not late February.
i have been seeing drones for the past two weeks so i am anticipating an early swarm season.
the making of small splits to open up the brood nest is an attempt to prevent the swarms that i know are coming. last year JP and i had swarm calls on the first few days in march.

second is that i am trying to do a rapid expansion and i expect to harvest from these splits if the spring flow is good.

i harvested from swarms that i hived in April / may of last year when i pulled honey in august.

i am not trying to have queens for sale to others just to have enough to double my current hives from 22 to over 50 at the end of summer.

between the local swarms and cutouts as well as making splits this is a very reasonable goal for this year.   we have a very large population of ferrel bees in my area and very few beeks to take advantage of them.

are you going to need alot of bees?  i may be able to help some if my trapping goes as i suspect it might.

let me know what you are wanting, i might be able to help you with some of our local survivor stock.

if you are wanting bees with a pedigree i cant help you there but i do know someone who can.

Bailey 

[jimmy]

Thanks for the reply bailey. My impression was that you were maybe having early queens and I could buy to make some early splits with queens installed. I have a supplier in Lumberton,Ms. that I have been getting Itilians from.I tried the Russians at first 3 springs ago but have had more sucess with the Itilians to build up much faster in Spring. (Anyone reading this please ,I don't want to start a race war about bees).
My supplier will start splits in a week or 2 . My wife will be getting a course on grafting from them.She began last year with a few hours but will help them several days this year . Have a good bee season and if you are ever on the N.S. give me a holler.   Jimmy

[bailey]

jimmy

you ever tried busby in angie? he does russians. my father in law has one of his hives. they did great.
bailey

[bailey]

the early splits went well. checked them today and found nice virgin queens in both.

iddee, i did what you warned me about!   one of the splits had a nice virgin queen and every available space had an egg or larvae!  went looking for the old queen and there she was!
took her out and put her in a queen cage, pulled some brood and bees from another strong hive and put the caged queen on in.
they seem to be accepting the queen without problems and the hive with the virgin queen has loads of brood to get started with.
glad i checked when i did 

the other split was interesting as well.  i had added alot of bees to ensure a good work force.
guess i overdid it because when the new queen hatched they swarmed within a few days
i caught them and put them into another hive with comb and capped honey.
looked in the split that swarmed and was greeted by a young piping queen and a good looking queen cell.
got 2 virgins out of that split and would have gotten 3 if i would have had time to pull more bees for a split and add the queen cell out of the split that had a virgin queen.

looks like the splits can work very well, almost too good.

bailey

[JP]

Glad things are working out. Been trying to get myself over to the yard but have family in town for mardi gras. Nice signature!


...JP