🔵Beekeeping - Splitting a first-year Nuc! 

@Abraham Zaiden Abraham & Sawyer, you don't belong on this channel! This is for the discussion of Beekeeping, and that doesn't appear that is what YOU are discussion! Do you mind?

I keep tryjng to keep the kitten away from the bees but it doesn't mind getting stung every now and then I guess. Of all the cats I have been around this rescue kitten is the nicest.

Don’t keep him away. He wouldn’t be there if the bees were bothering him. I have a cat that hangs out with me while I take care of my bees. Thanks again.

The bees Do a great job during a supersedure or when building swarm cells but in my experience when they are split and forced into an emergency queen situation you can end up with an inferior queen. I will definitely have a video on a walk away split soon. We will cover the things to watch out for and ways you can encourage the bees to only raise the best cells off of the youngest larvae.

Thanks dstick this colony is ripped now. Going to likely split again.

Hello from Wayne county Byran! Didn't realize you were on here. Exactly how I do mine although the reproductive and re-queening urge seems to drop off getting into mid Summer as the nectar & pollen flow falls off. I am still doing this but once I make the split, I place the split hive in the exact position of the original hive so the foraging bees will return to the split and move the original nuc/hive with the queen.

Haha thanks! She is a very calm beautiful cat and she is great for the family. Very friendly for a half starved rescue kitten

Unfortunately there is no good way to get rid of small hive beetles. Keeping colonies strong is the best way to deal with them. There are a few traps that can helps. Nothing eradicates them 100% thanks for the nice comment and for watching :)

Any update on your split?

Thanks. Basswood sure is a prime honey! Hopefully the rains will time it just right and help bring in that clover honey.

Better get that knee in shape so you jump out of your chair when the ref makes a bad call!

That’s why I’m at rehab so I can recover ASAP other than the current pain I can tell it’s going to be much better!!! RTR

Good deal!

We will try to do that in the near future thanks for the suggestion and for watching!

How did they overwinter?

Chris Tuttle all 12 hives came out of winter happy and stronge

@@jackiecurrah3364 nice job! Inspiring

That's impressive. How did you go for honey and wax production with all that splitting? Now I'm wondering what food supply your hives had.

Robbing happens no matter what we do when we feed. We reduce the entrances down and keep the colonies strong. SHB don't go after the queen candy near as much but they will eat it for sure. That candy won't last 48 hours

Up to you! I'd make a small split not one this big and have a mated queen

Hi jeff thanks for the compliment. I envision them drawing another deep ideally between the fall flow and the feed will give them. If they do as well as I want then we might split them again. Depends on how well our queens do, how good we feed, and how good we control the mites.

Sometimes it was to see what was underneath the honeybees so I could determine what I was giving to the split and what I was leaving. Sometimes I shook unnecessarily so I could show what it was in the video. Thankfully shaking bees is not hard on the bees as their exoskeleton is tough. Thanks for watching!

Hi Dee mainly so I could easily see what was underneath the bees in the cells. A couple times I changed my mind based off of what I had to work with. Trying to quickly do a video and split the hive to where both were fairly balanced was much of the reason.

@@kamonreynolds ah, that makes sense. Thank you!

Where's the Queen ???? 🥺 Tip : If you 'read your frame' like a Book, eg scan your eyes across the bees, line by line, left to right, across and down the frame, and not eye balling all over the frame in a random manner, you 'Will see the Queen' better ! (Hopefully, with practice.)👌 Tip : If your not sure which box has the Queen, after a Split, one will have new eggs, like upright grains of rice ! (If you can't "see them" by eye,) take several close up pics with your Mobile/Cell Phone... You will see them, on zooming in when you review images !👍 In the other Box, was the Queen here or Not !..... 🥺 After about four days you will see drawn down Queen Cups ! Or lots of Queen Cups... [ QC's ] If the original Split you did, had freshly laid eggs in a frame... They will be "Hopelessly Queenless"... Will Make QC's, in a SOS manner. QC's get capped on Day 5./6. It will hatch on Day 16 !!! (Don't go into Hive at all until a Virgin hatches, matures, flies out, Mates, returns, and starts laying. That's at least x3 Weeks at least, after seeing those original drawn down, uncapped QC's with nice big fat larva (grubs) in them... 💪 So on seeing your QC's as capped, select the longest, widest, most bumpy surfaced * x1, or x2 (a spare,) max !!! Mash or cut down all others ! Close hive, >>Do Not Disturb for 3 weeks. * The first Queen out, will kill any any other Queen from a 2nd cell (!) If 1st doesn't hatch for some reason, the second is a spare to the rescue ! Hope this helps. 🐝

@@mmb_MeAndMyBees thanks for the tips!

I haven't had an issue at 1 cinder block or higher. when directly on the ground or close, it can be an issue!

Hi Nancy I like to let them lay 3 weeks before we cage them. I have introduced them a week after laying and didn't notice a difference BUT she was not caged long since I only do that when I desperately need a queen for myself.

You can make a robbing screen but I find plenty of bee density and a good reducer typically works well. Now If I accidentally start robbing somewhere else in the yard it can start all the colonies attempting to rob each other. Keep me posted.

Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees they are robbing the half of the split with a lot of nurse bees closed them up today probably open tomorrow with small entrance THANKS YOU

Kamon, in your video you transferred a lot of nurse bees. It makes me wonder, do nurse bees protect the new colony?

NO !!! They need a strong population to get through winter ! Large Colony's will dwindle in size, when x6 week okd summer bees die, and are replaced by x6 'month' old Winter bees. 😏 Do your Varroa management when the brood is at its lowest. Varroa Mite breed in brood cells just before these are capped. Best done in mid winter, when Queen lowers or stops laying eggs (to conserve what food they have) for themselves and not feeding 'baby bees'. Also honey is not removed in winter. Also VM treatment* must NOT be done when "Honey for human consumption" is in the hive.(This is mainly in the Summer.) 👍 * Certain treatments are toxic, so not to be in our food stuff when extracting our honey at harvest. 😱 [Honey left for Bee food 🐝 is OK re VM Treatment, when it's winter. Because bees eat it, we don't ! ]

I would rather purchase a queen myself. There is a huge brood drop when you do walk away splits. If you get a great queen it will be fine. If she doesn't come back then you are already at the 11 hour when it comes to a hive going laying worker. Even if you then ordered a queen they likely would not accept her. You could combine them with a colony though but alot of brood potential has already been lost. Many people say they like it and it works well for then but that has not been my experience.

I haven't heard that before. I have never tried it just due to the fact that when my honey supers are on the bees are bringing in multiple types of pollens.

Thanks!

We are going to try and get them to draw an additional box in September when our fall flow is going.

You answered my question in the video. Thanks.

Thanks for the question though. Sometimes I forget to mention details like that

If you move the split a couple miles out you will retain the forager bees. I prefer the split with the new queen to have young bees. This is due to younger bees accepting new queens quicker and easier than older bees.

Sometimes I will make a split on the same pallet so the splits can be very close also.

Is that why you shake the bees off, to get rid of the older bees who simply fly off and back to the parent colony.

My old one (the one in this video) and the new white one are both from Kelly's but I've had this one for 16 years and they don't make this exact type anymore and the white one was the closest I could find anywhere now.

I have plenty of dragonflies around my hives and I was worried that they would snag my bees Not so far. They where after small moth, flies, skeeters and small yellow jackets and other bugs that where circulating around the hive while trying to get into the hives. Seen one of them snatching one small hive beetle while flying. Dragon flies, blue hornet and the brown wasp are welcome here. They act as natural bug killers.

@@FloryJohann I fear that they find fat, slow queens delicious.

Sure...did you miss the parts where he said he's feeding them? He reiterated it about a dozen times. The bees don't know they're in a dearth nor do they care...they just need the resources to grow, be it provided by nature or Kamon.

Yup dearth splits and we will be splitting till early September

I bought this one 16 years ago from Walter T Kelleys. They still make a similar one.

Yes you can.

Thanks for that question ... it makes me wonder whether the queen less colony has enough nurse bees, so adding nurse bees should really help with a queen introduction.