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Author Topic: Hive split, did I do the right thing?  (Read 3462 times)

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Offline CpnObvious

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Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« on: June 07, 2015, 08:22:25 pm »
I was inspecting hive "P1" today for the first time in 2 weeks.  This hive has been VERY active all year.  I found about 6 swarm cells.  Some were complete peanuts, others will be finished soon.  Not knowing they existed, I did accidentally damage one or two when pulled the frames out.  I wasn't really prepared to find this, so this is what I did in my mad rush... I hope it was the right thing.

I grabbed another base and put that deep onto it.  There was plenty of food and brood in it.  We went through the other deep to try to locate the queen.  SUCCESS!!!  We left that brood chamber where it was.  It also has plenty of food and brood in it.  I added one of my new swarm trap deeps to it (that's all I had) and placed the honey supers back on top.  I put a cover on the "new" hive and blocked the entrance.  I initially blocked it with a stick, but have now replaced  it with #8 hardware cloth.  It is about 20" away from the original.  I want to add another super to the top, but wasn't prepared for that.  I figured I'd trap them in like that for a day or two to try to keep them from returning to their original home.

Did I do the right thing?
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Offline Perry

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #1 on: June 07, 2015, 08:37:08 pm »
Your queen if she is still in the original hive won't be for long. Once they have made up their mind to swarm, they are usually going to.
I would probably have grabbed the queen and a few frames of bees (minus any capped queen cells) and moved her and those frames into another box and if possible, moved them to another yard. The remaining bees would think they have thrown a swarm as she and a bunch of bees are gone. Sort of creating a "managed" swarm.
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Offline Riverrat

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2015, 09:15:14 pm »
As perry said.  If you left the queen in the mother hive they will swarm.  The idea of splitting a swarm hive is to take the queen with the split to make the hive think it swarmed.  Do you ever get the feeling we are playing  games with the bees convincing them something happened that really isn't happening.  If you have had this thought you have caught on to beekeeping :laugh:
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Offline CpnObvious

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2015, 09:18:32 pm »
So, to correct what I did...

1) find the queen, put a few frames of brood and and food with her into a different hive, relocate..
2) put the bees and swarm cells back onto the original hive
3) tomorrow after work!

sound right?
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Offline riverbee

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #4 on: June 07, 2015, 09:53:14 pm »
LOL, well i will throw a curve in here.  i don't move the queen from the original hive......... :D
i take out half of the bees, all the frames with swarm cells, make nucs or divide in half and move them 3 miles down the road, and leave them with undamaged swarm cells......... :D

what you did capn  will work!
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Offline CpnObvious

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #5 on: June 07, 2015, 10:02:17 pm »
So the only thing I should maybe add to that, River, is to move the "new" hive and maybe grab a few more bees and another frame of brood?  The donor hive has PLENTY to spare.

As I just said in another post:  I'm really beginning to think year two is far more complicated than year one.
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Offline riverbee

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #6 on: June 07, 2015, 10:57:52 pm »
capn, your doing great, and what you did the first time around flying by the seat of your pants and making a quick decision was alright, for me i would have moved them instead of leaving them near your other hives and locking them in, but that's alright.

what you have going now, just make sure you have enough bees to cover the frames of brood, and shakes of extra bees in doesn't hurt, i always do. then relocate.

how many frames of brood did you add capn?

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Offline CpnObvious

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #7 on: June 08, 2015, 07:48:29 pm »
Thanks, River. This is proving to be quite interesting... And painful!

We've now moved the hive with several swarm cells to the OR apiary and added more bees from the donor hive. While gathering more bees we found two more swarm cells on another frame in the donor hive. There were so many bees in it we decided to make another hive out of it.   We took the current queen with plenty of food, brood, and bees and put the frames in another box. This is from a donor hive in Phillipston and this new hive is in Phillipston. We moved the new (3rd) hive to a different spot in Phillipston. We put a queen excluder on the bottom and a bunch of foliage in front of the entrance. We left the new found swarm cells in the donor hive. There is plenty of brood, bees, and food in each. So much for trying to get honey this year.

Despite the lack of an active queen in the OR hive, there are a TON of bees in it, she was very active early on. Depending on how things go I may try to add some using the newspaper method to the new OR hive.

I think we're just working one, big, stinging experiment!
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Offline Perry

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #8 on: June 08, 2015, 08:17:52 pm »
It is by sharing your experiences that we all have the opportunity to learn something. :goodjob:
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Offline riverbee

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Re: Hive split, did I do the right thing?
« Reply #9 on: June 08, 2015, 08:34:37 pm »
you are welcome capn, and what perry said!....... :yes:

"It is by sharing your experiences that we all have the opportunity to learn something."

........... :yes: yep

keep us posted on what's going on!



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