Hive inspection and box reversal

[Happy Chooks]

Make sure when you do the split that you shake off one frame of nursery bees (new-borns) into the new box to tend the brood on the frame you're moving to the split. If you do the split right, before the main nectar flow, the hives should start building in perfect timing and you shouldn't lose too much honey. Especially if you have a very strong hive to begin with.

Have to be careful with the walk away and a purchased queen... It will only work if you can be sure which hive ends up with the original queen. What you can do is do the walk away and then go back in about a week and open each in turn to see which one has new eggs/larva. That is obviously the one with the original queen. Or which one has supercedure cells growing new queens, which would be the split that didn't get the original queen.

At that point, you can install a new queen (to get things moving faster) or just let that hive grown it's own from the frame of eggs/larva you swapped over. If you've been happy with the performance of your queen and her offspring, why waste the money to purchase a new queen? Let them grow their own from proven, home-grown stock!

Good luck! and let us know how it goes!

Yep, gotta add some nurse bees.

Yeah, it hinges on me being able to find the queen. I've found her before, but it's not a guarantee every time. If there are any supercedure cells when I inspect, then I will use those to make a new queen. It will all depend on what I find in my next inspection or two.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I inspected my hive today and WOW, the population is really high! They are actively working the super, and capping is starting. I removed the super and inspected the top deep. They still have the outer 2 frames on each side, so they are not out of room yet. BUT, I did find some queen cups on the bottom of a couple of frames. They are empty right now, but I don't know how long I have until an egg is laid in them? So it looks like I need to be thinking quickly on splitting.

 

[Latestarter]

SPLIT, SPLIT SPLIT! Don't hesitate! Don't wait! Once you see queen cups at the bottoms of frames, it's almost essentially too late! That hive has already entered "swarm mode". You should also consider moving the empty frames in toward the center to make them think the swarm has already happened! Not side by side, but separated by one (or more) frame of brood.

A possible thing to do is to take the top deep and set it beside the bottom deep, maybe a few feet away. Then split the frames from the deeps so that each one has basically the same amount of everything. If you can find the queen, that's great, if not, the bees should make a new one in the box without one. Then put an new deep w/frames on top of each & let them explode with new bees!

Good luck and I hope you don't lose a swarm!

 

[Happy Chooks]

SPLIT, SPLIT SPLIT! Don't hesitate! Don't wait! Once you see queen cups at the bottoms of frames, it's almost essentially too late! That hive has already entered "swarm mode". You should also consider moving the empty frames in toward the center to make them think the swarm has already happened! Not side by side, but separated by one (or more) frame of brood.

A possible thing to do is to take the top deep and set it beside the bottom deep, maybe a few feet away. Then split the frames from the deeps so that each one has basically the same amount of everything. If you can find the queen, that's great, if not, the bees should make a new one in the box without one. Then put an new deep w/frames on top of each & let them explode with new bees!

Good luck and I hope you don't lose a swarm!

Thanks for the advise. I'll put a couple empty frames in the middle of the brood frames tomorrow. Is there a time frame on how long an empty queen cup is there before the queen lays in it?

I thought about splitting the 2 deeps, but I don't want to lose all of the honey production this year either. I thought about splitting with some frames of brood, eggs and honey from one of the boxes and doing it that way so I still get a pretty good honey crop. I'm going to go get another hive set up in the next day or so.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Got my new hive today. All set if the bees prepare to swarm.

 

[Maggiesdad]

Bee power!

She leaves when they cap the queen cells. Definitely rotate your sides in. Be ready with another super, too. It takes space to make honey, as your 1st super gets capped they are steady running out of room for evaporation... Once they start backfilling the brood nest w nectar - boom. So many bees just flew away!

 

[Happy Chooks]

I already moved the empty frames to the center, and they have a mostly empty super on too. I'll be inspecting the hive again at the end of this week.

 

[Latestarter]

You go girl! Don't let them ladies get too far ahead of you now

 

[Happy Chooks]

I inspected my hive this morning and the good news is.......the queen cups are still empty.

The queen is laying well, lots of eggs, larva and capped brood. I did not split the hive yet, but the new hive is all set up in case they swarm, hopefully they find the empty box as a good home. The empty frames that I put in the middle are still empty, but they are drawn out now, so I imagine the queen will lay in them soon. Very little honey storage in the brood box, so I don't think they are thinking of swarming yet.



Here are 3 of the queen cups, but I'm not sure what this blobby appendage is? It doesn't look like a queen cell, but possibly two drone cells next to each other? This is a picture of the bottom of the frame.







2 deeps full of bees. And this doesn't include the bees that were in the honey super. (I did not smoke them in case I had to find the queen to split them)





All put back together:

 

[Maggiesdad]

I wish your bees were here - the nectar is raining out of the tulip poplars,and you can't make honey if you don't have a field force...
Ah, well, maybe next year.