Getting Ready to Make Splits

In a month or two it will be time to make splits.  I'm talking beekeeping now.  Making splits involves taking one box of bees and making two.  It sounds like voodoo, but it's not.  I'm just a novice beekeeper, but I'll try to explain.  We're going to make what's called "walkaway splits."  You can do this if you have two deep boxes.  If you do, you simply take one of your deeps and put it on top of a bottom board.  

You don't even have to find the queen.  You just may want to check and make sure you have eggs, brood, and nectar/honey/pollen in each deep.  In whatever deep box that does NOT have the queen, the worker bees become aware that there is not a queen in only 5 hours.  The workers will begin feeding royal jelly to a couple of the larvae and they will become the new queen.  The walkaway split that has the queen will go on as normal.

This 'bee math' allows you to turn 1 hive of bees into 2.  If you are successful, you will realize a number of benefits.  Ideally you'll make more honey.  You'll also have more boxes of bees that you can sell, if you wish.  You'll realize increased pollination and thus, increased yields in your garden and crops.

I have enough boxes to make splits, I think, but I need more bottom boards.  You Tube is great for learning to do new things, even for an unskilled carpenter like myself.  It didn't even cost a penny.  I had some 1 x 12 lumber up in the hay loft that was leftover from another project, and I cut it up and was able to make 2 bottom boards.  The bee boxes fit right on top, hence the name bottom board.

From this angle you can see the little landing strip on the left hand side that they will fly into.

I found an old rusty can of primer that I primed the project with.  I want to do this right so that the bottom boards last as they'll be out in the weather and closest to the ground.  I put two coats of primer, just to be safe.

Finally, I put two coats of exterior paint on the bottom boards.  I'll let it dry for a couple of days and then I'll store them out of the weather for the day this spring where we'll make splits.

Now, I think I'll search for some plans to make telescoping bee hive cover.  They are $30 a piece if you purchase them, but I think I can make them for nothing other than my time.  Then we'll be ready for making splits.