This is ingenious @frazzledfozzle ! Can you please just explain it a bit more thoroughly? Such as; do the two (now) singles stay at the same site, do you put a new mated queen with the box taken off, do you equalise them somehow...? Cheers
Hive configuration to optimise honey stores
- Thread starter CHCHPaul
- Start date
Equalise brood and stores at the time you split favouring the top box with a few extra shakes of bees because you lose most of the foragers back to the bottom.
we like to use emerging brood in the split also because it doesn’t take long to boost numbers back up again. Split with a queen or a cell.
if it’s a cell we like to put it in the bottom box and bring the queen up to the top split.
if we split with a queen we will put the new girl in the top box leaving the old one at the bottom.
You can take either box of bees somewhere else or you can leave them on the same site next to each other or stacked on top of each other, although that makes for tall hives and means more lifting when you want to add honey supers etc.
when the honey is harvested we kill the old queen and paper unite the two brood boxes back together. So now you have a young queen two big boxes of bees and plenty of foragers to bring in the late honey for winter stores which they will put into the top brood box .
doing it this way gives us control over swarming by splitting in late spring.
gives us a good crop of honey and gives us a new queen and strong hive to winter over.
winter as double brood, split in spring run as 2 singles through the main honey flow then combine back into a double brood leaving the young queen in ...rinse and repeat.
we like to use emerging brood in the split also because it doesn’t take long to boost numbers back up again. Split with a queen or a cell.
if it’s a cell we like to put it in the bottom box and bring the queen up to the top split.
if we split with a queen we will put the new girl in the top box leaving the old one at the bottom.
You can take either box of bees somewhere else or you can leave them on the same site next to each other or stacked on top of each other, although that makes for tall hives and means more lifting when you want to add honey supers etc.
when the honey is harvested we kill the old queen and paper unite the two brood boxes back together. So now you have a young queen two big boxes of bees and plenty of foragers to bring in the late honey for winter stores which they will put into the top brood box .
doing it this way gives us control over swarming by splitting in late spring.
gives us a good crop of honey and gives us a new queen and strong hive to winter over.
winter as double brood, split in spring run as 2 singles through the main honey flow then combine back into a double brood leaving the young queen in ...rinse and repeat.
Thanks @frazzledfozzle ! I was so confused as to where my question went...🤪
Great answer
Great answer
Yes I saw that. But it didn’t auto watch that thread like the previous one so I lost it before @frazzledfozzle replied...