First time splits

[Blair Sampson]

In a few months time I will be doing splits (3-4 hives) for the first time. Rather than purchasing new queens, it has been suggested that I consider moving the old queen into the nuc/hive and notching (OTS) the existing hive to provide queen cells. I would be interested in hearing the pro & cons of using notching methods to rear new queens for my existing hives.

[neillsayers]

That's exactly what I did for the first time last year and I have the best queen in my yard as a result. Full disclosure, I made to splits at the same time and one of queens failed. Probably eaten on a mating flight.

[Lburou]

A walk away split usually works.  The downside of that split is you are spending the best days of the spring and summer bee season waiting for a queen to develop, hatch, mate and lay eggs. 

It takes about 30 days from the split date until she will be laying eggs.  Three weeks from that date until new workers are hatching.  You have spent 7 weeks of the bee season waiting for a queen.  Do a walk away split if you must, but your new hive will have a much better summer and be better prepared for winter if you can install a laying queen at the time of the split.  JMO   

[Perry]

Good advice above!

[robo]

In a few months time I will be doing splits (3-4 hives) for the first time. Rather than purchasing new queens, it has been suggested that I consider moving the old queen into the nuc/hive and notching (OTS) the existing hive to provide queen cells. I would be interested in hearing the pro & cons of using notching methods to rear new queens for my existing hives.

I think you have a very good plan.   As a northerner,  stay away from walk away splits.   You will feel the pain when fall arrives and you have queen failures.

One piece of advice is that if you are relying on the brood break as your approach to varroa control,  you need to dispatch the original queen or treat that nuc.

[vvand111]

Rookie wanting to learn.  What is a walk away split and what is notching mean???

[neillsayers]

Rookie wanting to learn.  What is a walk away split and what is notching mean???

In a walkaway split you take the colony and split the resources i.e. bees, pollen, honey, combs etc.. as evenly as possible between two hive bodies without really needing to know where the queen is and the queenless hive will raise a new queen of its own. The downside, as Lee pointed out is it will set the queenless side back by about 2 months.
Notching is done to help the bees make a better quality queen cell when they raise an emergency queen. It's done by pressing your hive tool into the comb beneath a row of eggs and mashing the lower wall of those cells down to the midrib. Hope this is helpful-and close to correct.

[robo]

Rookie wanting to learn.  What is a walk away split and what is notching mean???

Walk away split is where you take the queen and some bees/brood and leave the rest with eggs/larvae to raise a new queen.   It leaves them fighting to survive by raising an emergency queen without respect for the resources/conditions.  It also requires them to thin out the royal jelly being fed to the larvae so that it can be floated out of the cell and reconfigured to be raised in a vertical position.   This thinned out royal jelly is most likely less nutritious and being fed at the most critical time when the larvae is determined to be a queen.  Despite their ability to raise emergency queens and beekeepers finding it cheap and easy,  it is very rarely done in feral colonies.
 
https://beevac.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/

Notching is cutting the bottom of the cells away from the larvae so that it does not need to be floated out to be raised vertically.  It is part of Mel Disselkoen's OTS method.   A simple but excellent way to raise quality queens in small quantities.   It is what we teach back yard beekeepers to do in our club.




Just remember, even poor queen appear to perform good when conditions are ideal,  it is when fall comes that poor queens fail. This is the worst time to have queen issues.

[neillsayers]

Thanks Robo,

Your answer was way better than mine!