First Time Splitting a Hive (PART ONE)
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2018
- This took way longer than it looks on the video. It was really awkward and I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. However, in the end, it all seems to be OK. Stay tuned for Part 2 where I will get into the New Package Hive and I add feed to the Resource Hive Double Nuc.
The inspiration for this split came from this video:
• Jorik Phillips - Susta...
There will also be a part THREE after this weekend. Stay tuned!
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Absolutely love Vino Farm videos. So glad that you mentioned how awkward inspections can be, I've had nothing but tricky decisions over the last six months and come away from my inspections totally overwhelmed! Thank you for your real comments and sharing your emotions.
I think you could ask 5 BKs how to do a split and get 7 different answers Jim. Your split looked fine I think. I've made 3 splits, all successful splits, doing it the exact same way. I just baby the hell out of them for the season, (investment) for next year's hive going all 'Balboa' if you will. Best of luck on your new colony. I'd rather have a few strong, healthy colonies than a bunch of weak ones we'd lose to our harsh winter's and long cold springs. Cheers. Keep up the good work.
Looked good, you'll have queen cells in no time at all. I'd check in a few days and if they have several on different frames, I'd make another split with one of those frames and a couple of frames and bees from Balboa again. I think you had two resource hives.
When your queen/s go out to mate...don't get scared if the hive population drops for a few days and you can't find a queen. Sometimes they stay gone for a while before they come back. Usually if you notice the hive population blow up one day, you can figure she made it back okay. The new queen can bring back a lot of bees with her when she returns.
I agree with making the split in a nuc and letting the nuc make the queen. If old balboa had been trying to swarm then I'd probably have put the old queen in the nuc and let the old hive make the new queens. Once a queen is determined to swarm and there are queen cells, even destroying the cells it's hard to convince her to not swarm. The best way that works for me, is to go ahead and make her swarm artificially by putting her in the new split colony. This mimics what she would do naturally, you just control the when and where. I think this also sorts out some confusion from other comments saying it should be done one way vs another. Forcing a split....queen stays. Swarm prevention split.....queen goes with the split and old hive makes new queen.
There's not necessarily a right or wrong way, just a way that works best for you and to know that, you have to try different approaches over time and decide for yourself. Many a great bee keeper has made discoveries we live by now and they didn't have a PhD, just a degree in the University of Life Experience. The best beeks are familiar with all the options and which ones work best for them in any given situation. Anyone that tells you any one way to do something with bees is the "right way" have more to learn.
Brent
I'm so lucky to have people like Brent commenting on my videos! Thank you Brent! When are you going to get your channel going?
Thanks.
BTW...I'm also taking first harvest off right now. Ladino clover honey, locust, dandelion and russian olive honey. This is my best honey year so far. My bee hives are just insanely powerful this year, they're healthy and strong and we've had a strong nectar flow so far. Good lord, I love honey bees, so much fun and just plain wholesome living. I overfloweth with honey right now, is there anything better than honey on strawberries, mmm mmm.
Lol, well thanks and you're welcome but I think I should leave the video making up to the folks that work well on the screen. I'm a recluse with a dose of camera shy that would make a sasquatch envious.
Ha, ya know, I started to post a few vids one time years ago. They were mostly for a deer forum I have been on for years but I thought about doing vids for stuff like food plots and bees. Unfortunately the first couple I uploaded took like 6 hours to upload and they were only super short trail cam vids. I thought...lol nah, nope, I ain't doing that.
We're getting new fiber optics out here in the sticks though this year and faster internet so I may revisit it in the future. I farm 600 acres and manage wildlife on almost 3000 acres and do a little earth moving construction work on the side (original business) here in western MO/eastern KS and I think I'll probably have about 50 hives or so by this fall so there's plenty of stuff to provide some fun content on a YT channel. I don't know if I can handle the videography part of it though, something else to learn I guess. Maybe getting cattle this fall so that's either one more source of content or one more too many jobs to keep me from making videos, lol.
I am into the whole no-till, soil health and cover crops thing, have been since 2010. I can see a lot of pretty neat stuff to post about...well for folks that like that sort of thing anyway.
Brent Upload speeds are MUCH faster now. You should try again :)
Would you by any chance know where a person could get free wildflower seeds to turn a crabgrass lawn into a meadow? You sound resourceful.
Good job. The split looked good to me. Now the difficult part begins, "The wait". 😁
I hate "The wait"... :p
I'm excited for the wait! I love the magic. I hope to perform a jig if this is successful.
The feral hive I moved into a box swarmed on me the next week. I had to suffer "The wait" to see if my box of bees was going to end up with a laying queen. They DID! But it's been slow going repopulating the hive.
You're not the only one that'll do a jig. 😎 I'm rooting for those Italians all the way from here in Africa. 🐝
Bro, that wasn't awkward at all - that was great. It gave a real insight into your thought process and the "right then and there" mindset. We all know those situations, so we can all relate to how you must have been feeling at that moment. Thanks for sharing!
Well, the magic of editing makes a 60 minute frame juggling routine turn into a simple 10 minute video. Wait for part two... it goes smoother and I seem calmer. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for this. Your "cringe" feeling is exactly how I feel when i split or do a deep inspection. This is my first year beekeeping and I watch you guys do what I want to do on youtube or read a reddit post on what i want to do, then when I go out to my hives and pull things apart, it seems like nothing looks the same and my documented plan goes out the window. Thanks for having a honest and transparent channell
Glad it was helpful!
Don't be shy in shaking frames of nurse bees. You'll always lose more bees back to the original hive than you think. It's also helps to hold a frame by the end with one hand and with your other hand, make a fist and hit the top of your hand. Easy way to quickly dislodge all the bees off a frame. As long as you know where your queen is - shake in those nurse bees! Good split though, should work out just fine.
Happy Birthday to me, a new Post! You got splits started and I should pick up a new Nuc on Sunday. Great job Vino Farm is moving and growing!
Making a split was one of the most challenging but rewarding parts of beekeeping for me. It was like I had finally "arrived" as a real beekeeper and it also felt like I was getting free bees! I am looking forward to seeing your split flourish and I wish you the best of luck.
Also, quick idea. I've been adding an empty box above if I have to shake bees off for better inspection to keep them in. Maybe one day I wont need to, but for now... its helping.
Woohoo!! Can't wait to see how things progress. Hoping that the new hive thrives. Great job!
I enjoy watching your videos. You explain things well and don't hesitate to say if you are not sure about something. Keep them coming.
Ah YES ! A new Vino Farms Bee Video. Clear my calendar. Turn off my cell phone. Here's $20 order a pizza and everyone leave me alone ! Oh wait, being me a cold beer. Now I'm ready! Unless you are bleeding or something is broken, do NOT ask me anything. NOPE will be the answer.
Kelly Disque and another episode tomorrow 😃
I am two years behind you in my bee hive experience and really appreciate your posts which are hugely helpful - by the way I am up in North Conway
You did great! It looked exactly how I felt doing my first split this year too. I pulled from my Italian hive and gave the new hive a Russian queen.
Oh my gosh, I pray this works!! I wish all the best for our Balboa Nuc
Jim I think you did a great job of your first walk away.
I've done 8 splits so far starting last year.
One split didn't work last year.
I also lost a hive in the first year to starvation.
Your honesty is perfect, there's no point in saying you don't make mistakes to yourself.
I think your doing a great job,I've a local fruit and vegetable producer who we sold some honey to last year.
She now has a double deep with a super set on it as a bait hive.
The lemon grass bait wore off but I had a secondary plan of doing a split for her if it didn't work.
The split had a bunch of queen cells in it,yes I should have removed a few.
The split is doing fantastic and soon I will be taking the split in the poly nuc hive to her place to install into her hive.
As I've said in previous posts we use 98% poly hive with 2 red cedar hives the third having been donated to her to get her going with bees to help pollinate her fruit etc and get her started in beekeeping.
We prefer 100% poly hives over wooden,but I guess it's a choice that each keeper makes.
Keep up the great work Jim take care and keep doing the great great videos.
I'm trying to keep track of your and 3D honey bee's progress as we all started at the same time.
Different methods and ideas are proving a great success for the three of us.
Shaun Barker Thank you, Shaun. I will look into poly hives at some point. I like wood, but I also really like things that last forever and the insulation would be nice too.
🤗🤗🤗super excited for you/with you...my first year and lovin it. 4 hives..hope to be trying splits and such next year..great vids brotha👍👍
i see a number of "the better way" comments. they all have merit. but the wonderful thing is, bees are actually fairly resilient which means there's probably more than one way to be successful. the questions then come into, what is your context and what are your goals. those will inform the process you eventually hone.
Charles Ginzel I've gotten pretty good at distilling hundreds of comments and ideas down to the thing that works for me. I appreciate everyone's opinion and take everything into consideration before making decisions. It gets a little overwhelming sometimes but I'm doing OK.
Nice video, I like those support hives. I got one for myself to mess around with. I will go check out part 2 now... 😊 will be watching to see how this goes
I came here for the new music! Keep up the great work *thumbs up!*
The video was concise and informative not really awkward as you mentioned
My best split was moving the Queen with a few frames of brood. When you leave a strong hive like that without a Queen they Realize their Queenless within minutes. You will have a new capped Queen next day. Worst case on the second day. When you Leave a hive a strong is that without a Queen That hive is not gonna lose much with in the month the Queen is growing. Small hive without a Queen are a lot more prone to hive Beatles and veroa mites. When You Move the Queen to Your new hive That new hive will continue growing... In other words less Loss of bees when you move the Queen. Best way to split.
I'll try this way in the future. I feel this was the safest attempt for my first time.
I agree. Best way. You will produce a better queen.
Also using all same frames and boxes is better than having brood boxes... you can flip boxes and re-use the frames for brood/honey... way less headache.
Nick Sulakov Do you not risk the possibility of 2 queens hatching and one of them swarming in that case?
Nico Amaya new queen will never swarm unless shes mated... when you have 2 queens coming simply let bees choose. Bees will kill the one they dont like.
Congrats on your first split! If I might suggest only putting in two frames, one on either side of the box and dumping the bees in the middle of that? That will make it far easier for you and make you feel more confident in doing the splits. Maybe bring a piece of cardboard/bed sheet or whatever you have handy to cover up the other side of the resource hive to avoid dumping bees in there. Again well done!!! Team Balboa!!! :)
Yes, I learned that after the first shake! I do it better in part two!
Oh before I forget! Reduce the entrance on the nucs (I couldn't tell if the entrance was hive width or a Quarter width) so it is easier for them to defend it, at least until they are strong enough!
Gooooo Italians! You got this! 👊
When doing a split, from personal experience I find it best to select your frames first but before you place them in the hive, shake off about twice the number of bees you want in there from frames of the original hive as about half of them will return to the original hive. Shake them directly in to the box rather than over it then add the frames.
Great First Time Brother! Thanks! Hey Because of you I'm going to try this! Even Bought a resource hive!!
I propose we call the new NUC "Creed"
Ha!
Agreed my dude
I really enjoy watching your videos on beekeeping and you are doing a great job so far. One tip I can offer is if you want to transition from medium to deep is you can use frames of capped brood from your other hives as well combined with deeps from Balboa hive. You can kidnap Queen balboa off the mediums into a split and let your mediums go queenless in which the bees will make new queen and you can shake all the brood from the mediums into Nucs, then you can put capped queen cells into each Nuc and vola you will have a bunch of new Nucs. Also I recommend you watch Devan Rawn's channel on beekeeping, I learned a lot from watching him keep bees and he has a new playlist on ways to split hives. Best of luck with your beekeeping year!
Just a tip for shaking bees on a new hive:
Spray a little amount of syrup on the bees (be sure queen is absolutely not there). Then shake the frame, whole frame will fall like an ingot on a new hive. They will start licking each other and will be nice and busy when you are working. But be warned, be quick, syrup may call other bees. I find it very effective, you might eighter. I love your bees, they are on good caring hands, keep up the good work.
I did this on April 28th. There is now capped brood in my nuc. It is definitely a waiting game. Good luck to you🐝
Got my fingers crossed it will all work out!
Not awkward or cringey at all. I did my first split in January 2018, (Sydney, Australia), that was awkward.. lucky no cameras were rolling. I watched this video on the large screen and the frames you selected were excellent candidates for splitting. An exciting time for sure. I’ll stay tuned.
Michael Lane Thanks for watching. I appreciate the comment!
I love these so much!
I hope it works out for you. Consider adding a queen excluder between the deep box and the small supers. Keep the queen in the new deep box whilst the brood hatches in the small supers and shake all the bees into the new deep box to make them focus on drawing out the remaining frames. You can then build the balboa hive up the same as the Russians. The bees are waisting a lot of time on the two small supers which would be better spent in the new bigger brood box. A lot of bees in one large brood box will soon allow you to build up with all the same frames.
Yes, this idea has been shared. I was going to do it and forgot because my mind was all over the place this day. I am putting an excluder in place this week.
I put mine on today to limit my queens to the bottom box so as they build in the top they can fill with honey as they go.
This year i started my basic beekeepers course, part of it is doing a split. What we did different is that we placed the queen in a new hive just like would happen in normal swarm behavior. You leave her with 5 frames of bees with 2 frames of brood and 2 food in a 6 frame hive and leave the old hive so the old hive has the resources to build new queen cells. Just wanted to share
R. Dikkes Yes, that's another method. I will probably try that way on the future. Thanks!
Nice job!
I'm excited to see how this works out for you.
Loving the vids man keep it up 👌🏿👍
I hope it all goes well!!
That is a very strong split. When you get draw and capped queen cells you can split that spilt with cells in both. You have more then enough bees for that.
Splitting a split... beeception?
Vino Farm depending on how many queen cells you get you can split the split into two boxes. You only need a lot of bees to make good queen cells. After they are capped you only need a frame of bees per capped queen cell. So if you split the nuc in two you have twice the chance at a queen. With only one shot if you don’t get a queen you pretty much have missed your chance at making queens this year. There will be plenty of bees for both nucs. Plus you can always boost them with your big hives if they are weak.
Calmest bees Ive ever seen! Very nice
I hope it works. I would have moved away the queen in the split. Then the big main hive makes the cells and once the cells are capped you can make more splits.
You may want to check back in a day or two to see how many bees flew back to the main hive.
I think I saw someone refer to you as Jim.. Hope that's right... I have to say, that if you really like your Balboa hive's genetics, might I suggest that you give grafting a try.. I'd tried once a few weeks ago, (no luck, but got comfortable with the tools). Just completed the workshop at Cornell's Dyce Lab... Had 3 of 4 take at the lab, and even after the hour + drive back to the apiary, had 2 of the extra's take... (will have to see how it goes), still a long time til they hatch, but you have better sight, so I think you will have better success... it honestly seems scarier than it is... and it's LOTS of fun and encouraging when you see them start to draw the cells out...
Good Luck which ever way you decide..
Nice one. Again. :)
What the hell, got a bell, subscribed, nothing showed up in YT
Im glad to find you Thanx for vids.
1st off I love your videos. I found your content when I first started researching a flowhive last year. Couple things I have learned and would like to pass on. Sorry for the long windedness
I use the walk away emergency queen split method as well and I noticed a few things you did that might hinder your hives performance later on. Here is a few notes.. take them as you will..
1. You are attempting to make your nuc "hopelessly queenless" as per Palmers method.. during this time it gives you an opportunity to set up your main hive to give you the eggs and larva that you need. the frames you have added of varied aged brood and eggs gives the bees an opportunity to raise an inferior queen due to the emergency state of the hive. Once your split is complete as you have done, place an empty drawn frame in the middle of the brood nest of the main hive, as close to the queens location as possible.. she will usually begin laying in this frame right away. After 2 days check your main hive and this drawn frame.. if it has eggs, pull the frame out and put it into your nuc. This acts as a poor mans grafting frame.. you have essentially controlled exactly what the bees will build on. Then inspect the rest of your nuc and remove any queen cells they have started. By doing this you know exactly where and what your bees are going to be doing.
My first split last year I completed as a true walk away... i was faced with an inferior queen, and thus the hive requeened and they were held up for an additional cycle before begining to build up... they didnt and they needed to be merged with my other nuc in order to survive the winter. (i live in northern canada, -40c days)
2. I shake a few more bees then you did, preference i guess. in order to keep the field bees that I shake in the hive, simply drape some grass over your entrance, its like a magic marker for them and as my luck would have it, I rarely lose bees to the original hive when making a nuc.
3. you worry too much :) those extra bees you shook into the wrong side of the nuc will find their way home! dont stress about picking them out one by one lol
Don’t apologise for feeling things were awkward because that’s exactly what it’s like for us newbies. It’s not useful to make it seem like a dream when it’s not always. Trying to think of everything when over a busy buzzy hive can be hard. I often think of something I should have done or checked in the middle of the night 😏
Try putting an empty second box on when shaking bees... easier to smoke them down or brush them down into the box with frames.
Nice video but you don’t have to feed the split since the have the food if you over feed the before the queen starts laying you might have a laying worker and you kept the split near the mother hive wich means that some bees will fly back to the mother hive it is better to move them to a new location so they all stay with the split becouse right now they may leave the hive and the brood may die so watch out for that 😊😊
Looking forward to the results! I hope to be able to do a split next year. Beekeepers club says I might be able to end of this summer, but not confident enough to do it that late in the year.
Scott Robbins you absolutely can, depending on what your fall looks like you may not have to feed at all. Here I can make a three frame split, feed and they will build up a three story deep resource hive quickly.
Bees know when mating season is for them. The time drones are flying is the time to reproduce. When the drones are a few weeks from banishment is your last chance. Until then it's all fair game. Especially in a double NUC really small clusters can be overwinterd in even the coldest climate. I live in the northern rockey mountians (Southeast Idaho) and overwinterd fall splits are the rage for all the big-time keepers near me. The ones that do that here are the greybeards the newbies all aspire to become. They try to catch a colony as it naturally gets ready to swarm and catch those splits as well as force some at the end of the season.
Some people are fantastic swarm catchers some great honey producers but everyone in the busines/hobby who is long-term is splitting and growing baby colonies a few ways and or a few times throughout the season. You shouldn't keep all your bees in one basket.
Your videos are awesome, also your farm, congratulations. I just stumble upon your channel. One question though, about the garlic series, I couldn't find part 3, did you uploaded yet?
Isaias Carriazo No. I need to edit it and it will be up in time for this summer harvest period. Thanks for the reminder!
Not cringe at all. You are a beekeeper. This hobby is working for you. Today you are growing your own apiary and in a few years you will be the wise old sage who always has a spare queens kicking around his beeyard for sale if you need it. Make sure they buy some tomatoes plants when they come to pick up the queen and sell them some more when they return the cage!
Thanks !!
It's a good split, other than mismatched frames which will continually vex you. Look at swapping those before the new queen starts laying, once they are all hatched out.
Daza Mistwalker yes, swapping them out is the plan. It is a temporary situation. Thanks!
Really excited for you. I’ve got my fingers crossed that the nuc behaves and produces a great Queen. Are you going to add pollen as well as sugar water for feed support?
Part 2 is coming!
Congratz for the first split. Hopefully it worked great.
What I´m wondering during the close up, was on the double nuc box, the both vivaldi boards ( or it called anyway, don´t remember the right word actually ) have the entrace on the same back side. It is right?
Just found this older one of yours as I was going to be doing a split of my own, great vid btw. Question, at 5:01-5:07 in between your commentary is that the local wildlife chirping of croaking, or is that a queen piping ?
That absolutely sounds like a queen piping, but it makes no sense that it would be happening on that frame. I did not catch that because I don't think I had ever heard a piping queen at that time.
Those are some calm bees.
You should see the Russians. Ugh.
Great video! Mixing different frame sizes sounds like a hassle. I hope you don't plan adding any undrawn medium frames anymore so those go away. Also, if this works out and you start getting more hives it would help a ton if you gave these hives good names. :D
I'm going to convert to all deeps in the brood boxes. I'm just out of drawn deeps at the moment. They will add comb to the mediums to fill up that space if they want. The nucs are not permanent homes. As the season progresses, They'll move to a hive with all deeps.
Give a shot at queen rearing! It’s quite rewarding!
Couldn't tell for sure from the video but just make sure that the extra frames you shake into the nuc are brood frames, you want to make sure they are nurse bees and not foragers. Looks good though. Your first split is scary!
islandhomesteader Yup. It was mid day. Mostly nurse bees in the hive and I only shook brood frames. Thanks!
i'm gonna stare at your channel till part 2 appears.
I tried a split Saturday i just took one whole box and made it a new hive.. i didn't even look for the queen she's in one of the 2 so what's the difference? My only concern is hive beetles they are relentless here in Florida i was going to let them make a new queen but I've decided to buy one so they don't slack too long and get taken out by the beetles...
Did a split thee exact same way this week. One of my established hives robbed it!!!! It has been destroyed as a result! 2 questions. 1) any suggestions in relation to distance from other hives? 2) I need to move 2 established hives 20 feet (7 yards approx) from original location. How can I do this? All reasonable suggestions welcome.
👍👍
In such a harsh climate such as your I would highly recommended Apis mellifera mellifera, the black honey bee native to northern and Western Europe. Apis mellifera mellifera are hardier and far better at overwintering the Apis mellifera ligustica (the Italian strain). Apis mellifera mellifera are also know to fly at colder temperatures.
Send me a queen! I'll try it out!
I don't breed queens, I'm sorry. It is possible however to by them easily online. As soon as I start breeding queen, though it may take decades, I'll send you one.
Hope it works :)
Re watching the videos. Hope it boosts your revenue :)
Haha yea... it was totally awkward! Well that’s beekeeping for you!
GREAT intro music! Yours?
BlackSwan912 No. I try to find all royalty free music, but recently subscribed to epidemic sound and have found some GREAT music for less than $15/mo. I have no musical ability.
Are you using deeps on your 8 frames?
Yes, Trying to convert to all deeps.
03:33 What is the white stuff in the burr comb? {Seen under the "BA" of "BALBOA"} ~ How can you tell which ones are Nurse Bees?
Steven Scott Drone pupae that were exposed when I took the upper box off. The comb was connecting the boxes and it tore open.
Steven Scott Nurse bees are small and generally just cling to the caps of the brood and walk around the hive. As they age they become workers and foragers and guards that fly.
if they are building drone comb like that it usually means you need drone comb for them there's a few ways to provide them this area , drone frame, drone starter frames , or simply s couple empty frames. the bees will build there because if you use small foundation every where its the only spot for them to build drone comb..
Aw! The poor pupae! :(
Interesting! Thank you!
I have hives that are ready for splits but Im putting mated queens in them , i just cannot afford almost 2 months down time for the bees to make their own queen , and then trying to recover from the die-back .
smartmonkey777 Adding a mates queen is the quick way, but you lose the genes from the mother hive. This time I want to preserve the legacy. In the future I will be adding mated queens.
I get what your doing, ( that's why i made this comment) you can breed some queen cells up before hand , breed them so the 50% that come back actually lay eggs. Instead of a walk away split that has something like a 60-80% chance to fail .
In a walkaway split you will have wasted queen cells , because the first queen will kill the other cells , redundancy is now f**ked .
Now if your queen doesn't make it back from mating 50/50% the hive its dead 100% and no backup .
On top of all that in a walk away split you are taking a month for the queen to come back bred and a additional week to start laying so a huge amount of workers will die by the time the first eggs are laid then 2 weeks from that point , here you are 1 3/4 months in with very weak hive super behind with 2 months left till " the end of bee season " august and if your bees don''t have a 100+ pounds per box and enough workers its a dead hive..
So essentially you have weakened your big hive and may have killed the split ...
I live way north so i have figured out every possible way to make it easier on my bee's
I breed queen cells in a already queened hive, transfer the queens to mating nuc's breed them (and then do what ever
) and no downtime and stress on colonies , from what ever genes i want cause i picked the larvae.
I have one question. I know I'm new, and have never done this myself, but doesn't the existing queen need to lay an egg into the cell cup first before moving the cup to the cell builder? Do the bees need a 24 hr. old larva in order to start this?
The nurse bees in the nuc will choose a few eggs and build queen cells AROUND existing eggs. They need fresh eggs and they will do the rest.
How can you be certain as to how fresh or new those eggs are? I was always under the impression that eggs laid into cell cups need to be freshly hatched. Within 24 hrs. to 3 days in order to produce a healthier queen. Thanks for your reply. Regards.
There were eggs and brood of all stages on that frame. I'm not sure which exact egg they will choose, but they have a choice of hundreds. I'm letting the bees decide.
Got it. I'm sure they will do well under your care. The eggs are not capped yet. Sorry . My oversight.
Oh, right... there were everything from fresh eggs to capped brood and every stage in between. The bees know what to do.
Where do you buy your nucs from?
Jennifer Perry The boxes? BetterBee.com
Just be mindful I've seen my bee's return the eggs from the nuc back to the original hive and have to place another frame with eggs on it after a few days then they start the queen making process.
Phillip Crouch you've seen bees moving eggs? Is that a thing???
Vino Farm I have seen this happen twice with splits I have done. I find it enjoyable to sit and watch the coming and going of the hives. The first time I seen it I could not figure out what the white stuff was the bee's where leaving the hive with. Then I checked the hive a few days later and I found no eggs left inside the Nuc. That's when I realized what the white stuff was. The second split I did I was looking for it and sure enough I seen it again and was able to get a better look.
It might be just something my bee's do it might be all bee's but I've never heared anyone talk about it. So is it worth a look to check and see after a few days or wait 10 days and then look? I don't know all up to the beekeeper as what is best for them.
Wow, I've never heard of that. I'll go have a look this weekend. If this happens, I'll try to get some footage.
that's why you pen up the bees inside for 24-48 hours some even do 36. I also like to use a separate location ESPECIALLY for virgin hives ~~~~~!!!!!
You're right you don't know what you're doing but that's ok I did the exact same thing you did on my first "split". I got help when I had to split someone else's bees and will share what I was taught by a master. The right way is to take that queen to the nuc and let the big boy make a new one. To find the right frames to put with your queen: Learn to find frames with emerging or about to emerge bees. You do that by carefully removing the cap off a worker cell. If the pupa has purple eyes that's what you want. Build your nuc up and plan on it being two stories pretty quickly. Might even make some honey. The queenless hive will make honey too. They have nothing else to do for a couple weeks after they cap queen cells. Now if you time it right you can harvest a frame with a cell for the other side of that duplex and build a second nuc. There should be capped queen cells in four or five days once you made them queenless. Or not.
Mike, do you get much out of your top bar hives? This is a really good summation of some good splitting methods.
It's not "the right way" it's just another method. Leaving a queen in big hive is OK.
Mike Ries Well, that certainly is another way to do it! I thought about moving the queen to the nuc, but on this particular hive I guess I'm just super attached to it. I'm not ready to fiddle with Queeen Balboa's daughter. I just want her to keep plugging away.
In theory, this should work fine. There are many many examples of this working all over the place. If it doesn't work, I just put the frames back in the mother hive. No fuss. I'm learning. I'm going to make mistakes... but the worst case scenario here is I just recombine. Nobody dies.
Will I figure out a better way in the future? Probably. I still want to try this way first. I know this hive can successfully build a queen. They did it last fall with a single queen cell. I know they can do it again.
Thanks for watching.
Didnt see that comment. This is true. I've done it lots of times.
There is really no need to move the Queen from the original hive and place her in a NUC, 8 or 10 frame unless you are trying to prevent swarming.
So if and when the nuc makes a queen, she'll be Balboa I granddaughter, right?
zadidoll Correct.
With that much land you have the possibility of becoming the largest northern beekeeper. Fencerows. With flowering vine suitable to your area. Contrary to popular belief trees are NOT the number one source for pollen. Vine is. I once saw a wysteria, on a single vine, over two hundred feet long! Trumpet vine, which also feeds hummingbirds can grow fifty feet in a single year! FYI, Move splits as far away as possible. Or all the bees will leave the split and go back to their original hive. if you have a successful split and it is named Balboa why not name the new one Creed? The original Rocky movie was the best one with exception to the last.
Someone else beat you to the Creed idea, but yes... that name would fit well! I will be planting lots of things in the coming months. Stay tuned!
If you ever want a custom painted hive......let me know. Hell, i will trade you dollar for dollar just to add something beautiful to world. Nothing quite like custom artwork.
Hope it works but the only problem you may have is that the bees in the nuc you made up might fly back to the parent hive
Conor Coughlan Some will, but the nurse bees won't and the emerging bees won't. That's why I shook extras in there. The next day there were tons of bees flying around the entrance orienting to their new hive.
How do you know they are nurse bees? 6:05
I think u should have waited until the original hive had a queen cell and moved that over or closed that nuc off so they could not get away and that might have made them want to stay
The hive had no reason to make a queen cell, and they usually don't unless they feel their queen is failing/dead/swarmed/etc, like they did last year (new Queen will be 1 year old in a few months). If he would have waited for the Balboa hive to make a queen cell, he might have been waiting for years. lol Forgot to mention that the Balboa hive he just did the split on was Queen right (meaning it had a Queen). :)
May the unborn drones rest in peace, forever in the bosom of our lord. 😔🤞🏽
You always kind of hesitate what to call the daughter of the Balboa Queen. Just call her "Baby Balboa" and then her descendants "XXXX Balboa" That way we'll know the lineage. I learn so much from your videos. Thanks.
Mr. Boston I'm working on a naming scheme. I'll get it straight pretty soon. Thanks for watching!
Feed the split pollen patty
Stay tuned for part 2!