This makes me wonder again if catching robber bees and adding a mated queen would work to make a new hive. As long as you give them enough drawn frames would it work?
Have you had any losses doing this caused by the crazy weather we've had? Last April we had a late hard freeze that kill most of the blooms and weak hives that had begun brooding up. Depending upon how far south you are in AL, you may not have to be concerned about that. EXCELLENT video and loved the follow up. 👍
Thanks WR. Yes, you definitely need to be very aware of your climate and you run a risk of trying to get too early of a start. My hives are located about 10 miles north of the Florida line, so I can typically start very early.
Enjoyed the video. Especially liked that you did not publish it until you did the follow up inspection and showed that it worked. Lauri M would be proud.
John: Yes. The new queen less hive can (and will) make a queen. But that is not the way a would have liked to do it. Last year, I timed it correctly and made a starter/finisher hive and grafted queens that were timed for the Fly Back Splits. So I had queen cells that I had raised that I placed into the Queenless hive of the fly-back split. This worked well for me. This spring snuck up on me though. I had lost 3 hives to swarms before March 1, and I had to go ahead and do my Fly-Back splits early. I did not have the time to raise queens. So the queenless hives of the Fly Back splits raised their own queens via emergency cells. It works, but not ideal and not the way I prefer to do it. I have since grafted queens that are currently being mated in mating nucs and I should have about a dozen by April 3. These queens will basically be "spare parts" for any queen problems I have with my production colonies. The spare queens that I do not use, will be graduated to 5 frame nucs and then, if still not needed elsewhere, I will make a full production colony out of them. That is my plan. But things rarely go as planned for me. Hope this answers your question.
Hi Patrick, Thank you for your reply. I forgot to thank you for the great video, it was very informative. I initially wrote to you because this method has interested me for a while and it's surprising how little is written about this simple, effective, and flexible method. I figure that it can be used for building comb, swarm control, swarm prevention, or increase. I wrote to you because I'm considering using it for increasing my apiary this year. I like its simplicity; once the queen has been found, she gets moved right back to the original location and the field bees take care of her while everything else stays at the new site...a no brainer for a hobbyist like myself. No worrying or looking around for eggs and larvae, just let the bees sort it all out themselves. In the past I've tried walk-away splits and have had mixed results because as a simple backyard beekeeper, I don't have access to an outyard to move my splits to. My recipe for the splits was two frames of food, three frames of brood, and a couple extra shakes of nurse bees. I than left the bees to make a queen but many of the bees would often drift back to the parent colony and the nuc would then just piddle along not doing too much. Other than its simplicity, what I find so attractive about this method is the nurse bees make the queen cell and from what I understand, nurse bees are better at doing this than field bees. After I perform this split, my plan would be to feed them, wait for 7 days, and then open up the hive to look for queen cells to make up nucs with. I know emergency cells are not considered to be as good as swarm cells for producing queens but since I don't graft, I thought that this might be a suitable alternative. A friend of mine who comes from Europe told me that this is the preferred way to perform a split with beekeepers. In your opinion, could this be a viable way to produce quality queens for a backyard beekeeper like myself? Thanks for your time and attention. Be well, John Gallagher
Best video and explanation of a fly back split on UA-cam!
Thank You!
This makes me wonder again if catching robber bees and adding a mated queen would work to make a new hive. As long as you give them enough drawn frames would it work?
What about the other hive? Did you allow them to make a queen?
Have you had any losses doing this caused by the crazy weather we've had? Last April we had a late hard freeze that kill most of the blooms and weak hives that had begun brooding up. Depending upon how far south you are in AL, you may not have to be concerned about that. EXCELLENT video and loved the follow up. 👍
Thanks WR. Yes, you definitely need to be very aware of your climate and you run a risk of trying to get too early of a start. My hives are located about 10 miles north of the Florida line, so I can typically start very early.
Enjoyed the video. Especially liked that you did not publish it until you did the follow up inspection and showed that it worked. Lauri M would be proud.
Thank you. Definitely Lauri's recipe.
If in the case that you don't add a queen cell or requeen could the new queenless hive make a queen?
John: Yes. The new queen less hive can (and will) make a queen. But that is not the way a would have liked to do it. Last year, I timed it correctly and made a starter/finisher hive and grafted queens that were timed for the Fly Back Splits. So I had queen cells that I had raised that I placed into the Queenless hive of the fly-back split. This worked well for me. This spring snuck up on me though. I had lost 3 hives to swarms before March 1, and I had to go ahead and do my Fly-Back splits early. I did not have the time to raise queens. So the queenless hives of the Fly Back splits raised their own queens via emergency cells. It works, but not ideal and not the way I prefer to do it. I have since grafted queens that are currently being mated in mating nucs and I should have about a dozen by April 3. These queens will basically be "spare parts" for any queen problems I have with my production colonies. The spare queens that I do not use, will be graduated to 5 frame nucs and then, if still not needed elsewhere, I will make a full production colony out of them. That is my plan. But things rarely go as planned for me. Hope this answers your question.
Hi Patrick,
Thank you for your reply. I forgot to thank you for the great video, it was very informative. I initially wrote to you because this method has interested me for a while and it's surprising how little is written about this simple, effective, and flexible method. I figure that it can be used for building comb, swarm control, swarm prevention, or increase. I wrote to you because I'm considering using it for increasing my apiary this year. I like its simplicity; once the queen has been found, she gets moved right back to the original location and the field bees take care of her while everything else stays at the new site...a no brainer for a hobbyist like myself. No worrying or looking around for eggs and larvae, just let the bees sort it all out themselves.
In the past I've tried walk-away splits and have had mixed results because as a simple backyard beekeeper, I don't have access to an outyard to move my splits to. My recipe for the splits was two frames of food, three frames of brood, and a couple extra shakes of nurse bees. I than left the bees to make a queen but many of the bees would often drift back to the parent colony and the nuc would then just piddle along not doing too much. Other than its simplicity, what I find so attractive about this method is the nurse bees make the queen cell and from what I understand, nurse bees are better at doing this than field bees. After I perform this split, my plan would be to feed them, wait for 7 days, and then open up the hive to look for queen cells to make up nucs with.
I know emergency cells are not considered to be as good as swarm cells for producing queens but since I don't graft, I thought that this might be a suitable alternative. A friend of mine who comes from Europe told me that this is the preferred way to perform a split with beekeepers. In your opinion, could this be a viable way to produce quality queens for a backyard beekeeper like myself? Thanks for your time and attention.
Be well,
John Gallagher
well done. J