Walk Away Split

Are you thinking about using the pollen for yourself? If you have tons of pollen coming in why would you harvest it or buy it for them? If you want it for yourself then that’s another thing altogether, and actually one of the things I am hoping will help my girls with their allergies. My youngest often gets allergies so bad it gets mistaken for the flu.

1 Like

I figured I could keep back a weeks worth of collected Pollen and give it to the NUC and Sapphire to help them along.

That way I would be sure it is “safe”

I want to enter a small amount of Honey - Just for fun - in our local Show - and if need be feed it to the NUC or to Sapphire but will not take any for me - it is all theirs this year.

We did Uniting hives last week and I plan uniting the bees into Sapphires Hive if I don’t end up with a laying Queen.

If I do end up with a Queen laying I was thinking of stacking the new Queen over either Sapphire or Emerald so they can benefit from the shared warmth for winter but separated by a clear perforated cover and putting a second entrance only for Azure and crew using the Snelgrove board.

I checked the girls tonight - Emerald has already strengthened her brood numbers, all the Starter strips I put in - 4 - are all drawn out - she is an absolute star!!!

@dangerous - I’m a hands on sorta gal - being a Chef, Teacher, Carer and proactive I find it hard to sit on my hands on the sidelines.

I don’t do half measures. I want to do the right thing by my bees, I’m learning and reading all the time - I have quite a bit of time on my hands until September.

All comments welcome

You really must give your bees the chance to build back up. Until there is brood …wall to wall on at least 8 frames…it is still a small colony. …and you need several rounds of brood like that to get the hive full of bees. 4-6 frames in a full hive isn’t enough…it is still nuc size.
This new nuc has got time to build up but not if you put it in a full hive too soon…it slows them up. The nucs needs to be brood on at least 5 frames and lots of bees before putting in a full hive and even then would benefit from an extra round of brood before moving it. Your nuc would probably be best to go through the winter in the nuc…unless it absolutely bursts with bees and brood.
The problem with stacking the hives…you would have to put the nuc in a hive…you could dummy it down with celotex blocks to 6 frames. However, if they cling to the warmth rising from the hive below they may not move to their stores and hence they will starve. Also, the colony below will suffer from heat loss right above their cluster. Which won’t do them any favours. The best you can do during the winter is to make sure all your hives are really well insulated…especially if they are wooden.
I just checked my new nuc today. This was made on 29/6/15. Today 29/7/15. There are 2 frames of BIAS…not totally wall to wall. I had fed the nuc a couple of days ago…so there was stores and the bees were flying today bringing in pollen. I marked the queen and they will be left now to get on with it for a few weeks…I will just keep an eye on stores.
It is said that every time you go into the brood nest in a colony…they have to spend time recovering…probably 2 days. So if you keep disturbing them…bear that in mind.
My bees are inspected weekly during the summer months. But as soon as I can that is stretched out to 10 days or more if I am confident that they are not thinking of superceeding/swarming etc. It is unlikely that your colonies will swarm but they may superceed if you interfere too often.
Instead you could get a copy of Storch…at the Hive Entrance…an interesting book and it will bring hours of entertainment trying to figure out what your bees are doing according to Storch.

Booked on the queen rearing course!! Yay!

A good trait to have.
BUT
You need a mentor. Nothing beats one to one help.

2 Likes

So, Valli, I’m intrigued what was the outcome of your walk away split?

Unfortunately the queen didn’t get mated as there was such a bad summer - many local beeks were complaining of drones being kicked out.

If she were able to be mated it would have been my 3rd hive.

I had 3 Queen cells that were viable - one didn’t make it and the other was “seen to” by the hive and not emerged.

Would have been a good split - but nature can be a witch.

So I chose the frames at the correct age for them to make queen cells, did everything right but next time choose a good patch of weather - it is a learning experience, I’m glad I tired

Did you recombine your bees? I’m guessing that you did.

1 Like

They were resistant to leave their Queen I could not find her and kept dumping them on the grass but they kept going back to the box even disassembled - they wanted that Queen but she was not mated - I was quite surprised really

1 Like

Hey Valli, you win some and you lose some, its the smell and they need to be re-programmed or left to finish their lives. I had a small cluster of remainder bees from a split that would not leave the underside of a hive, even after I scooped them up and placed in the top they were back the next day. In the end they eventually made their way back up into the hive but it took the best part of a week. Was weird.

2 Likes

It was the bad summer weather I blame - drones got chucked out early, no forage due to bad weather - mother nature will win out

1 Like

Thanks for the update Valli, bad luck. Its always interesting to learn from others experience. :grinning: Maybe next year you’ll have a better season.

1 Like