Dividing a Hive

[WOB419]

I am about to divide my hive and I expect that i have to take one of the two hives at least 3 miles away or all of the field bees will end up back at the original hive.  Do you agree? 

Also given that field bees have 3 weeks of life left in them, I should be able to return my hive to my back yard after 3 weeks, correct?

Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated.

[JP]

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


...JP

[IABeeMan]

 No need to wait 3 weeks. They will reorrient after a few days. It is all depending on how strong your hive is. We have no way of knowing where you are since your location is a joke. If your down south and your hive is nice and strong you may not even need to take the split away. I have split strong hives and did the split right there beside each other. I do the split and put the new hive in the location of the old hive and the field bees return and help populate the new hive. I move the old hive to the new location and if it was a strong hive to begin with it will do just fine.

[Michael Bush]

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

I've never actually moved a hive to do a split.  I just put it in the same yard.

[IABeeMan]

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

I've never actually moved a hive to do a split.  I just put it in the same yard.

I agree Michael. Do you put the new hive in the place of the old one? I have done it both ways and if one part of the split is week I place it in the original spot to help boost the population of the weak one.

[Michael Bush]

>I agree Michael. Do you put the new hive in the place of the old one? I have done it both ways and if one part of the split is week I place it in the original spot to help boost the population of the weak one.

There are several things you can do to equalize things.  But the important thing is that you account for the drift in some way.  One is to face both the new halves at the old location and leave nothing there.  The bees returning then will have to choose.  Another is to just shake extra bees in the one being moved to the new location.  Another is to plan on them returning.  A cut down split leverages this to get more honey.  You move the open brood with adhering bees, the old queen and almost all the stores to the new location and PLAN for the foragers to return to the old location and, since there is no brood to care for, one less box to live in, a lot of capped and emerging brood there will be a huge work force to collect the flow.  The secret to this, of course, is the timing.  This needs to be done two weeks before the flow.