Summer Splits
Summer splits are to produce Nucs that will be overwintered, either to sell, or to replace lost colonies.
If I have few management nuc's from spring splits I can supplement them from summer splits.
The winter of 2013/2014 was nasty. If I had 100 nucs I could have sold every one of them for $200.00 each without question. Keeping nucs makes your apiary sustainable of and by itself, but it also allows you to remove excess if you do not wish to grow, and make a little money doing it.
I have made spring splits, I have my production colonies growing in leaps and bounds producing honey and bees.
I make my summer splits much the same as I do my spring splits, except for the FIRST split of the summer.
I make this a very strong split. It will be the split that makes the queens for all of the rest of your splits. See QUEENS page for more.
Once you have your queen cells ready for your nuc's, you go out to split.
Two or three frames of brood, preferably not eggs or young larvae, but as long as the queen cell you have to put in here is viable it should not matter. To bees, a queen cell is as good as a queen. A frame of nectar and pollen, and fill any empty slot with drawn comb if you have it. If it is an empty frame make sure it is to the outside edge.
Once again, make SURE no queen is transferred to the nucs.
If you do not want to search for the queen, or cannot find the queen, shake the bees from the brood frames and put the frame into the nuc. Set the nuc on an adapter board over a queen excluder on top of the hive, cover the nuc and walk away for a while, two or three hours, depending on the day. Cool mornings or evenings will insure the brood is covered by nurse bees. Warm afternoons may find the nurse bees down below having coffee.
Once the nurse bees have moved up and cover the brood in this box, you can remove it and set it on a bottom board. Screen the entrance and cover. Give the bees some time to realize they are queenless, in this case, an hour will do, then install your queen cell. The bees will calm quickly.
You have mostly nurse bees that have never been outside the hive. They will not fly back to the original hive, but any foragers you brought along will. This nuc has no foragers, and no guard bees as yet. Remove the screen, reduce the entrance, and put 1/1 syrup, or a little lighter than 1/1 on top. Keep tabs on your nucs. Make sure they are not getting robbed! They are vulnerable at this point.
Put the queen cell between the frames near capped brood, cover the nuc, and give it three or four days. Check ONLY to insure the queen emerged. Remove the cell, space the frames correctly and cover the nuc.
Stay away from it for two weeks if you can, then check for eggs and larvae. You may see capped brood if the queen was running on premium when she came back from the mating flight.
If the queen failed for any reason... IE; Eaten by a bird on her mating flight, recombine this nuc with any weak hive that can use the extra strength.
Be prepared to add a second box, or swap into ten frame equipment if you are looking for increase. Using mediums, I winter in two nuc boxes. I will add the nucs to the winter page well before winter arrives again.
Very simple splits that anyone can do.
Two or three frames of brood, preferably not eggs or young larvae, but as long as the queen cell you have to put in here is viable it should not matter. To bees, a queen cell is as good as a queen. A frame of nectar and pollen, and fill any empty slot with drawn comb if you have it. If it is an empty frame make sure it is to the outside edge.
Once again, make SURE no queen is transferred to the nucs.
If you do not want to search for the queen, or cannot find the queen, shake the bees from the brood frames and put the frame into the nuc. Set the nuc on an adapter board over a queen excluder on top of the hive, cover the nuc and walk away for a while, two or three hours, depending on the day. Cool mornings or evenings will insure the brood is covered by nurse bees. Warm afternoons may find the nurse bees down below having coffee.
Once the nurse bees have moved up and cover the brood in this box, you can remove it and set it on a bottom board. Screen the entrance and cover. Give the bees some time to realize they are queenless, in this case, an hour will do, then install your queen cell. The bees will calm quickly.
You have mostly nurse bees that have never been outside the hive. They will not fly back to the original hive, but any foragers you brought along will. This nuc has no foragers, and no guard bees as yet. Remove the screen, reduce the entrance, and put 1/1 syrup, or a little lighter than 1/1 on top. Keep tabs on your nucs. Make sure they are not getting robbed! They are vulnerable at this point.
Put the queen cell between the frames near capped brood, cover the nuc, and give it three or four days. Check ONLY to insure the queen emerged. Remove the cell, space the frames correctly and cover the nuc.
Stay away from it for two weeks if you can, then check for eggs and larvae. You may see capped brood if the queen was running on premium when she came back from the mating flight.
If the queen failed for any reason... IE; Eaten by a bird on her mating flight, recombine this nuc with any weak hive that can use the extra strength.
Be prepared to add a second box, or swap into ten frame equipment if you are looking for increase. Using mediums, I winter in two nuc boxes. I will add the nucs to the winter page well before winter arrives again.
Very simple splits that anyone can do.