What is a walk away split?

[Jen]

When I do my split this spring, I don't have another place 2 miles away where I can leave the split? what should I do?

[DMLinton]

Not sure which question you are asking.

For a walk away split, take a hive base, bottom board, inner and outer covers to the bee yard.  Put down the base and bottom board with entrance facing opposite direction as that of the existing hive.  Put the top brood box from the existing hive on the new base.  Add covers.  Walk away.  Note that a walk away split requires the queenless hive to deal with that.  Getting a new queen up and running in that manner takes about 65 days longer than adding a new queen at the time of splitting but then it is not a walk away split.

You do not need two miles to separate splits.  Turn the entrances in opposite directions and monitor.  If too many bees are going to one hive, switch the hive positions.

[iddee]

Move the half with the queen. Then follow DM's second suggestion.
5 feet is far enough.
I would not suggest a walk a way for a first split.

[Slowmodem]

I would not suggest a walk a way for a first split.

I can attest to that.  I ended up with a great crop of wax moths.   

[Jen]

K, I'll be requeening.

[tecumseh]

a snip...
I don't have another place 2 miles away where I can leave the split?

tecumseh....
another location some distance away is a nice plus but definitely not essential.  in making splits often times I move them down the road to a location that I have for such things and less often I simply make up nucs in very tight equipment, close them off their entrance(s) and stack them in a shed for one to two day.  after setting for a while I then set them out and open them back up.  they then seem quite adjusted to their new space and new location. < a lot of folks don't feel comfortable closing off bees for days at a time and you can provide some things to make their stay less stressful. some water and setting them in a nice cool space are always number 1 and 2 on my own list.  I like to remind folks that when it comes to the question of maximum time in closing up bees in a box that they were introduced here in the US by Europeans who closed them up in some kind of package and then stowed these in the hull of a ship that required months to sail from Europe to the Americas.

your equipment does need to be very tight for this approach.  if it is not you will invariable loose a bee here and there and when you come back to open up the box it will invariable be quite empty.  a worker bee can escape from a very small opening so close and careful inspection before and after making up the split should be on your essential to do list.

[LazyBkpr]

Good advice there...  If I cant move a box or a nuc I lean a piece of plywood up against the front of the hive to stop the bees from shooting away without paying attention. They will re orient, and four to six days later remove the plywood and they will re orient again.

[Jen]

You mean flush up against the opening so they can't get out, or at a tilt?

[Riverrat]

You mean flush up against the opening so they can't get out, or at a tilt?

Place in front of entrance at a tilt a tree branch will work to.  Anything to make them reorientate to the front of the hive

[LazyBkpr]

Aye, what RiverRat said. Dont want to block them in, just make them say "WHOA whats this?!"  before they go zooming off into the distance without looking around

[Woody Roberts]

I do it a little differently. I would take a nuc box, or a full size if that's all I had. Set it beside the existing hive and find the queen and move that frame into the nuc. Making sure I left a frame with eggs in the old hive. I'd then give the queen two or three more frames with capped brood on them. The nurse bees on the brood frames will not leave. The capped brood will hatch in less than nine days.

Close the entrance down to one or two bees worth and feed internally.

The existing hive will raise a new queen and I nearly always have eggs 30 days from the split. If no queen or eggs by 37 days or so I'll combine them back with the other hive which is usually going pretty good by this time. I wait about a week and do it again. This insures I get young bees in the hive to build a queen.

I used to only give them 30 days but Iddee pointed out to me once that wasn't always enough. Come to find out he was right. Who would have thought it!
I named the hive after him and it's still doing good.

I've only bought one queen in my life and I wasn't impressed with her. I have good luck with my home raised mutt queens as long as I don't split too early.
Walter Kelly said the earliest you can split is when the blackberries bloom in your area. I've found this to be true. I've made several splits earlier and not one of those queens saw fall much less the next spring.
Some would start laying drones after a couple months and some would be superseded, probably because they didn't lay well at all.
I make most of my splits after the spring flow is over. The weather is good, there's lots of drones. The risk of not making it back from their mating flights is slightly higher I think but most make it back.

Sorry for the rambling, just my thoughts. Woody

[Crofter]

Woody, my son found the same thing with queens he mated early.

[Jen]

Woody, I have never heard of this method! Soo Intriquing

[tbonekel]

Quick question and I know I've seen this before but can't remember where. After moving the frames with the queen to the new box, you have some space in the old box. Do you place drawn comb in that space or undrawn foundation? What about an empty frame with a starter strip? Or do you push the frames together, removing the space, then place new frames on the outside?

[Woody Roberts]

I'm foundationless so I just drop a frame between two drawn frames somewhere. I glue my wedge on sideways when I get my frames but when placing between drawn frames it's not necessary to have a starter strip. I don't like to put two undrawn foundationless frames together.

I don't worry about moving them. The flying bees will go back to the old hive but the nurse bees and the brood that's getting ready to hatch will call this home. Quite often I set the new one on top of the old one until I get a stand built.

I consider three frames to be a minimum. Two will work but she can only lay as many eggs as she has bees to cover. Two frames take a long time to build up.

This method is quite simple and has a very high success rate.

[DonMcJr]

Here's another Split method... The "Book Split Method" and was told to do it as soon as the Dandelions Bloom. Don't matter which Box the Queen ends up in...the Queenless Hive will make a new one...

[tecumseh]

a snip...
 Come to find out he was right. Who would have thought it!

tecumseh...
pretty amazing that such an old guy could get it right from time to time???  us old guys do not always get things right but generally our OPINION is backed by lots of experience.

another snip...
After moving the frames with the queen to the new box, you have some space in the old box.

tecumseh...
this depends largely on population.  I would rather have just the right number of bees in the box to adequately cover ALL the frames.  I would rather have extra space in a box than lots of frames unattended because the population inside the box was too low < there are some fairly obvious risk with split if the population in the box is either too low or too high.

Warning here > although we make a loose rule that a population of bees once queen will produce, if resources are available, a replacement queen in the form of a queen cell some years back, during one of my commercial bee keeping gigs, it became quite apparent that not ALL hive would in fact do this and to be quite truthful I never really came to an understanding then or afterwards exactly why things worked in this fashion.  add to this likely mating failures and the possibilities of failure increase significantly.  for these reason + the opportunity to add genetic diversity to a small population (ie number of hives in a particular location) I never recommend walk away splits for a new beekeeper.   

[Woody Roberts]

Here's another Split method... The "Book Split Method" and was told to do it as soon as the Dandelions Bloom. Don't matter which Box the Queen ends up in...the Queenless Hive will make a new one...

This is what I call a walk away split. If you just separate the boxes you could end up with a box of brood and a box of stores.

You separate the two boxes and deal the frames like cards.
If your running mediums and four is your brood box then just deal the boxes like cards.

My problem with walk away splits. I live in cow pasture country and the main flow here happens early. If I do this before the flow neither of these will make surplus honey. Here a hive has to be strong to put up a surplus.
Splitting after the flow would be ok but if they swarmed there's no surplus honey and the hive is not strong enough to split IMO.

I just believe there are better methods.

[riverbee]

"My problem with walk away splits. I live in cow pasture country and the main flow here happens early. If I do this before the flow neither of these will make surplus honey. Here a hive has to be strong to put up a surplus.
Splitting after the flow would be ok but if they swarmed there's no surplus honey and the hive is not strong enough to split IMO.

I just believe there are better methods."

there are better methods. like tecumseh i would not recommend walkaway splits to any new beekeeper.  the failure rate is very high, and one does not have the benefit of enough knowledge of the dynamics and biology of a hive to recognize a problem, unless you have a mentor helping you. if you are lucky, your walkaway split will take most of the season to build up, and get them ready for winter.  you will not have surplus honey.

i always say have a purpose and what do you want to accomplish? more bees? more honey? a little of both? swarm management?

woody you don't have to do a complete divide of your hives, you can do a 'soft' divide of your strongest colonies, just enough to keep them from swarming, before a flow, and they will put up a honey surplus in a good nectar flow.

this is how i do my divides, post #1 this thread:

SPRING DIVIDES

tbone~
"After moving the frames with the queen to the new box, you have some space in the old box. Do you place drawn comb in that space or undrawn foundation?"

i don't always move the queen. drawn comb goes in the center and undrawn to the outside.