harvest and hive split

[tristan]

just a little something i did a bit different this year at home.
i needed to get honey off and also split a hive so i combined it all in one.

i did a typical on site split, nothing fancy just move the old hive to new spot a few meters away.
built my split in the old location. just letting them make their own queen as i forget to get cells from work.
old hive back together but with bee escape and honey supers above.
both split and old hive are two 3/4 broods.

bees came out of the honey supers ok, probably somewhat easier due to less bees in the hive as most of them had flown back to the old hive spot and filled the split.
the split was full, nice big beard out the front.
over the last 4ish weeks the split has dropped in bee numbers, no more beard but as of yesterday its still full of bees and queen starting to lay.
the old hive is still running brood and building back up ok.
still got a little way to go, the split will drop a bit before it recovers and old hive will continue to recover hopefully before the wet sets in.

overall a little surprised it work that well. the supers cleared really well, no doubt because of lots of room below that they can go into. thats often the problem i have with escape boards.

 

[CHCHPaul]

Cool. How did you manage the split? Did you look for the old queen or just shake all bees off the brood you used for the split?

I like the sound of this. Less likely to set off robbing too I suspect.

 

[yesbut]

March honey harvest...what's your Tutu regime ?

 

[Morporks]

just a little something i did a bit different this year at home.
i needed to get honey off and also split a hive so i combined it all in one.

i did a typical on site split, nothing fancy just move the old hive to new spot a few meters away.
built my split in the old location. just letting them make their own queen as i forget to get cells from work.
old hive back together but with bee escape and honey supers above.
both split and old hive are two 3/4 broods.

bees came out of the honey supers ok, probably somewhat easier due to less bees in the hive as most of them had flown back to the old hive spot and filled the split.
the split was full, nice big beard out the front.
over the last 4ish weeks the split has dropped in bee numbers, no more beard but as of yesterday its still full of bees and queen starting to lay.
the old hive is still running brood and building back up ok.
still got a little way to go, the split will drop a bit before it recovers and old hive will continue to recover hopefully before the wet sets in.

overall a little surprised it work that well. the supers cleared really well, no doubt because of lots of room below that they can go into. thats often the problem i have with escape boards.

This method is older than the hills
Works well

 

[tristan]

Cool. How did you manage the split? Did you look for the old queen or just shake all bees off the brood you used for the split?

just shake all the bees off. far easier and quicker than finding queens.

March honey harvest...what's your Tutu regime ?

nothing, pretty much tut free here. plus i give it to work and that all gets tested anyway.

This method is older than the hills
Works well

pauper splits is old as.
not sure if clearing supers on a nuc is as i've not seen it before. tho i would be happy to know if its an old trick.

 

[Alastair]

Emergency raised queens can often turn out to be perfectly fine queens. I'll sometimes do it if no other options, long as the hive raising the queen has plenty of bees, as was the case in this example.

 

[tristan]

i usually find that they are pretty good. in my early days thats all we ever did.
typically the big downside i find is the length of time it takes, which leaves the hive/nuc more vulnerable.
we have had issues with queen suppliers in the past, if they don't do things right you can end up with some very short lived queens.

 

[Morporks]

We have honey supers for our nuc boxes and I know others who also use them

 

[tristan]

We have honey supers for our nuc boxes and I know others who also use them

?? i'm not sure how that fits the discussion.