OK.
Have just done my first split and am concerned.
Its only been a day too.
All the info says to leave the Queenless hive alone for a week.
Does this mean I’m to block the entrance too, or do they still want an entrance???
They will want an entrance for sure.
Cheers
Rob.
Thanks
Suppose Just gotta be patient and hope for the best.
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I always struggle with the being patient thing!
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Am I OK just to take a peek to make sure they’re still there?
I’ve made the opening much smaller and there seems very little activity.
The weather is warm and sunny with plenty of food around for them.
The other half of the split is slower but nowhere near like this one.
There’s not an issue with lifting the lid for a peek but i wouldnt be going through the frames. How did you do the split? If there arent many bees and there are frames of brood to look after, i imagine there might be less activity at the entrance.
Also, if the split is close to the former hive you will likely have had drift of foragers back to the old hive.
Lack of activity at the entrance of a split is normal. If you think about it only nurse/house bees are in the split as all the field bees would have returned to their original hive. If there was “normal” entrance activity it would get me thinking about robbing.
Be patient and leave them alone to get on with being bees.
Cheers
Rob.
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My understanding was to keep the hives close to each other so to “confuse” the bees in which hive to go back to. Both hives were a metre away from the original spot.
The one with the queen has a more normal activity.
I did split the frames as best I could and did it fairly quickly. Many of the frames had queen cells at the bottom of the frames, so am hopeful
I’ll give it at least a week.
Hey its my first time at this and was pretty daunting
Many thanks
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Just took a photo of a split I did a couple of days ago. Virtually no activity in front of the split but planty of activity in front of an established hive. This is what I would expect.
Cheers
Rob
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So how are the splits doing?
Very Good.
Before the split there were quite a few queen cells. Now there are none. I haven’t spotted the queen but I never have.
Both hives are very active and after inspecting them have no wax moth.
That’s great to hear. I suppose as long as you have evidence of her it’s all good, although it is lovely when you are able to spot them. I don’t think wax moth generally move in until bees are gone? When you do an inspection can you post some pics?
So here is my set-up.
The blue and yellow ones were the split. The blue one had the queen and has about 6 frames full while the yellow has the new queen and has about 3 frames full. The new queened one still only has a single doorway. This is all after a couple of weeks so am pretty optimistic. Its now also just starting to warm up. Finally!!!
The double decker in the background has the flow hive and I just managed to get the super off and scrape some of the built up wax. That was almost an hours worth as the bees had been busy. A lot of work as the build up was big. In a couple of days will revisit to inspect the brood box.
Am considering to put an extra brood box on this one.
I live on 30 acres surround by more Australian bush and Jarrah is in full flower as are my cherry trees and citrus. They have so much to choose from.
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