Back in THIS POST we discussed our attempts to make splits. We explained that we currently have four hives and how you can make splits from existing hives to expand your colonies of bees. We attempted to split into a deep box and also a small nuc box that I made. Well, it's been almost a month ago and today was the day we had marked on our calendars to check to see if the splits were successful.
When we pull the top off, we'll be looking real quickly to see if we can see a queen or eggs or larvae. If we see any of the above, we have a laying queen and will have expanded our boxes from four to six. If we don't see any of the above, we'll restack the boxes on top of where they came from. Tricia and I put our bee suits on and headed out to the hives. Lots of activity from all of the boxes - bees coming in and out. Bees carrying pollen going in. That's a good sign!
Using the smoker to calm them down, we opened up the deep box. Here's the moment of truth! It's windy today, so I'm going to be looking real fast. I don't want our new queen, if we have one, to fly off. Once I see the queen, eggs or larvae, I'm closing it up as we will know the split was successful.
There's a pretty decent amount of bees on the first frame and the cells are heavy and full of nectar.
We didn't see the queen; however, if you look at the very center of the frame below and to the right, you'll see white larvae in some of the cells that look like the letter "c". There are also a few capped brood cells. Even though we saw no queen, the larvae and capped brood evidence the fact we have a laying queen. It's a successful split!
Let's check out the split in the nuc. Only five frames in here, but there was a pretty decent population of bees in it.
A quick look. This frame has nectar in it. You can see the reflection in the bottom of the photo below:
I do a quick scan on one side and flip it over to see the opposite side.
As in the other box, we were unable to find the queen, but if you look in the very center of the photo below and to the right, you'll see larvae!
Another successful split! We added a queen excluder and then put a medium box on top. That will keep the queen out of the honey supers. I moved the brick from crossways to straight. That's my note to tell me that we have a laying queen in this box. In the photo at the very top, you'll see that the bricks in the split hives BEFORE we checked them today had the bricks crossways.
We started with four hives - now we have six! There's a story to the box on the far right with the top cracked. Why is the top cracked? That split hive was the one that was in the nuc. The nuc was a homemade box made with 1x12 lumber. It wasn't exactly square, so the lid didn't seal perfectly. The bees in the nuc never used the front door. They would go in and out through the gap between the top and the nuc.
When we moved the frames from the nuc to a deep box so they'd have room to grow, bees coming in from foraging couldn't figure out how to get in the box. They were congregating at the corner where the nuc had a crack for going in and out. What to do! I've got to get the bees back in the box! I had an idea! I'll crack the telescoping top. It worked! The bees coming in went right in the box. Bees don't fly at night, so after dark when all the bees were safely at home, I went out and closed the top. Tomorrow morning when they go out the front door, they'll recalibrate and find their way back home.
| From four hives to six |
What good news! We expanded our hives by two boxes. It's important to do this as it is not uncommon to lose a hive or two every year for one reason or another. Making splits and/or catching wild swarms is a good way to "insure" your beekeeping operation. Should you lose a box or two to wax moths, varroa mites, small hive beetles, or any other reason, you've added a couple boxes by making splits.