Last week I made a split of my wanting to swarm hive by taking 5 frames out of my hive adding 3 frames of food drawn comb and a new frame with 2 queen cells to a friends house hoping the queens emerged and took the mating flight.
Today I inspected my bees and the hive made 6 queen cells. So my mentor came over and we took my queen with some brood to a new location temporarily for 3 days and will split all the other queens up the day after tomorrow into other hives/nukes.
We looked at my last transported hive and the queens were not emerged but 6 more queen cells were on 6 of the frames so we took that hive to a different yard and split up the hive again.
Now at this point I’m confused as to what’s going on but I’ll find out more the day after tomorrow.
That’s a lot to digest! I’m not sure what to think but having read that I had all 3 types of queen cells in the hive. As my beekeeping friend speaks poor English, I’m missing a few key things as to the direction this is going to take. Thanks Dawn. I’m going to reread this and print it out for my Bee book.
When I do a split I always go back into the colony before the new queen emerges to check that my chosen queen cell is intact and to take down any more queen cells the bees make. It’s quite common for them to do that.
My thinking is different to yours @Dee. I have in the past selected the queen cell by it’s size and eliminated the rest but I since then left it to nature and the bees in the colony to decide by natural selection. Once one of the queens has mated and laying well if the workers have not eliminated the closed bee cells then and only then I take them out, maybe to be put into a nuc or destroyed if I don’t need a new queen. Only leaving one queen cell that is unopened leaves too much to chance in my opinion.
Regards
Well I’ve taken queen 2 cells to make a split which produced more queen cells and no mated queen. I bent one and they made 5 more so I’ve turned it over to an expert using my hive to repopulate 2 more locations which suffered losses this year. The guarantee from all parties was i’ll have plenty of bees to get my flowhive full of honey. So in the spirit of helping save the honey bee and others sharing their knowledge with me I’m hanging in there until I become more experienced and hope my local beekeeping friends are in line with all parties walking away happy. I hope it works out and all these different methods work!
Yaaah ! That’s a lot to process ! The dye is cast … even my little pea-picking brain is swarming making a Flow-chart of what you did.
I’d sit back now n relax … think bit what happened n what was done. There’s stuff to learn here.
Question please ( if you found cells originally) when you make the original split why did you leave her magesty in the original Flow-Hive … I’ve done that Bo Bo before. Now if I do a split I move her to the other box n move that colony to my second location.
Where you getting all the extra brood n honey (food-frames) for all these Nuc’s/Splits ?! I’m trying to go mentally thru this n learn ! . That’s been a wild ride of Beekeeping since per your profile you only had one 8 frame Flow-Hive (was the Flow hive a double deep or single brood box) just processing n curious !
Standing by to see how this venture goes ! Good luck n keep your calm …
Cheers n happy beekeeping,
Gerald
P.S. not sure my flow-chart is even close to what you did
Tomorrow comes the mentor again as he was unprepared for all my queen cells. He is coming with frames other and whatever else he brings. Your flow chart is almost there. I like that you did that and will probably do one with dates to better see what is happening through the forums eyes.
Martha ! Always better than a good idea to keep logs n records of your hive. I date any observation, changes n additions or substraction to my hive of supers, frames n equipment. I’ve got six different colonies n there’s absolutely NO WAY can remember all the frames n what’s on they. As many know … I’m a photo nut. I can look back at my dates, notes, observations n photos to jog my old sawdust memory.
Sometimes (often) I steal brood from a strong colony n want to remember where that frame went n/or came from. Few times I ran out of deep frames n used a shallow so want to remember where it is. My brain sure isn’t going to stay up on all my manipulations. Thus my photos, record books n sheets … mite counts, treatments, n dates.
Hope I’m not scaring you … when you get 72 years old I use all the help remembering I can get.
Thanks for your thoughtful return note. Cheers young lady,
Yes if needed but so far diatomaceous earth has kept it down. I’ve not had ants in the hives. An additional benefit would be I can reverse level the hives during winter so any water will run out as I use solid bottom boards for over wintering or level it for top bucket feeding.
Brain puzzle or not you got it done . Excellent … Now store it in a note book n make additions n modifications as you go …
I re-Nuced 3 of my hives last Friday (lost to yellow jacket last autumn) so I’ll add a restart date to my Cedar, Fir, n Alder n hives. Yesterday, I also finished a 24 hour mite drop count. I’ll add that info to my logs n check into a local research group that collects this data on my hive as well.
. Here’s another Nuc project I’m working on. I have another starter Nuc coming soon. When it gets here I’ll install in a double deep (5 frame) Nuc hive. These type of setup can really grow fast (veritical/up) so I have to be on my toe watching n checking weekly. I’m going to use it as a mixed brood production machine/hive. I use frames of brood from it to help pump up the population of my other colonies that might be weaker so all my hives are ready for our one “Big BlackBerry forage crop”. It’s often this crop or bust for us up here in the Pacific NW east of Seattle. It’s an experiment but I often steal frames from Peter Huves to pump-úp Paul hive (rob from Peter to pay Paul method. Couple more pix’s!
Sorry to maybe bore you with my extra pix’s n bee project… Just an old man’s musings … I appreciate you showing me your flow-chart ! . I’m going to blow it up a bit so my crappy eyes can study it.
Well the one cell I choose is always uncapped. I would never split with a capped cell. I have lots of hives so if the split fails i unite them. Better the split failing and keeping the bees than it swarming and taking half the bees with it. Beekeeping is different all over the world and just as well really. If it works do it.
I’m re-looking at the log sheets and books. I think I’ll start a notebook for each. Do you have a blank pdf of your printed form? I would love to print as needed.
They have a phone app and a web-based interface. Plus you can try it free for a couple of weeks. I have been using it for a couple of years and find it does most of what I want.
bit what happened n what was done. There’s stuff to learn here.
. That’s been a wild ride of Beekeeping since per your profile you only had one 8 frame Flow-Hive (was the Flow hive a double deep or single brood box) just processing n curious !
. Excellent 
… Now store it in a note book n make additions n modifications as you go …
can study it.