# New question~ should I buy new bees or split hive 2?



## Cheryl aka JM (Aug 7, 2007)

This may be long as I explain what I've done and what I need to know.......

So as y'all probably saw last week~ I messed up and starved my bees. I thought about sending some off to the lab~ but inspection of the dead hive 3 (I mistakenly thought it was hive 1 in my last post~ but it is hive 3 that is dead) anyway~ inspecting it showed thousands of dead bees face first in the comb and NO HONEY at all. So I'm reasonably sure I know what happened and I've been throwing the sugar syrup to hive 1 and hive 2 since then.

At any rate~ on Saturday I did a complete inspection. It was not wanting to overly disturb them and inspect closely that let them starve to death in the first place so I really took the hives apart and looked. As I said hive 3 was completely dead. No live bees at all, no honey at all. Hive 2 seemed to be doing great~ lots of brood, lots of syrup filled cells, very little capped honey (one frame about a 1/4 full of capped honey). Lots of angry bees! Hive 1 had lots syrup filled cells and lots of angry bees~ but no brood that I could find and no capped honey. I did spot a bee I was pretty sure was a queen and lots of drones on Saturdays inspection. I kept throwing the syrup to both hives~ I took the three medium super boxes that Hive 3 had been in (all three of my hives have 3 medium supers as the "hive body") and shook off all the dead bees I could. I put all the empty frames in one super and put it in the freezer. All the frames that had dead bees face first in the comb~ or capped dead brood I put into the other two medium supers and put one as the top box on both hive 2 and hive 1 so they would clean the comb out for me.

They slowed down on the syrup and I didn't need to put out more syrup until today~ my thought was to pull those top boxes off if the bees had finished cleaning them. Well~ they had....and had started laying brood in them! Hive 1 had really loaded that top box down~ In just 4 Days!! It was HEAVY with syrup filled cells and cells with little curled bee grubs! I was suprised! Hive 2 had done the same thing but the box was not all that heavy yet. I went ahead just now and re-arranged the frames and the boxes so the empty frames on the edges of the three medium supers from each hive are on the top box that actually belongs to hive 3, and all the syrup and or brood filled frames are in the three lower "hive body" boxes.

And there are a LOT OF REALLY MAD BEES out there!!

So~
Should I stop giving them the syrup soon and give them honey supers? (never given them honey supers I intended to take before, but I do have the new boxes and frames to do that when the time comes). 

Should I try to make room in my freezer for those other two boxes of frames that belong on Hive 3? will they be all right if I don't freeze them if I can get more bees reasonably soon for hive 3? Freezer space may be an issue.

Should I put a queen excluder on hive 2 and hive 1 since they both seem to want to put brood in that fourth box as soon as I put one on there? Or did my rearranging of the brood solve that problem you think?

Should I buy new bees ($85 for a 3lb box and a queen in April and I need to make my reservation now if I want them) Or should I try to split hive 2? If I do.....How? Do I need to move hive 3 further away if I do that? There is about 30 ft between the 3 hives now.

What do you think?


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## jjstephens (Mar 8, 2013)

Perhaps I misunderstand your intentions but I don't think I'd split a hive this time of year. The colony is already reduced by winter attrition. Splitting it will only make matters worse. If you wanted to wait until later in the year (after it has re-established itself) to split it that might work. But then you'll have two hives that are trying to get re-established probably meaning little or no honey available for harvest from either in the fall. I think I'd go with leaving the existing hives intact and buying a new package.

As to the hive spacing, 30' is way more than enough. Hives are often placed inches apart--I continue to be amazed that the bees know which one is their home. Smart little critters!


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## indypartridge (Oct 26, 2004)

Cheryl aka JM said:


> Should I stop giving them the syrup soon and give them honey supers?


Depends on what's blooming (is there a nectar flow) and whether they have sufficient stores.



> Should I try to make room in my freezer for those other two boxes of frames that belong on Hive 3?


I'd probably put them - for now - on top of your other hives so they can keep the wax moths out.



> Should I put a queen excluder on hive 2 and hive 1 since they both seem to want to put brood in that fourth box as soon as I put one on there? Or did my rearranging of the brood solve that problem you think?


Use of queen excluders is an endless debate.You'll have to make that call on your own.



> Should I buy new bees ($85 for a 3lb box and a queen in April and I need to make my reservation now if I want them) Or should I try to split hive 2?


I encourage you to try new things. Make a split.



> If I do.....How?


There are lots of ways. Here's a link that describes a number of different techniques:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Place the boxes from hive # 3 on the remaining two hives. Since they are filling them with brood you just need to remove them to have a good start on a new hive #3. You can either buy a new queen or raise your own since you said there were drones.
aising a new queen isn't all that hard if you don;t care about the genitics. As long as eggs or less than 3 day old larva are in the new hive the girls will make queen cells. Once the first queen hatches she will take care of the other cells then mate with drones and return to the hive to stat laying.
Keep feeding till you have stuff in bloom, lots of stuff. You can also use the queen excluders place the honey supers on and feed thill the foundation is all drawn out. Watch it close so they don't fill the cells with syrup.

 Al


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## Cheryl aka JM (Aug 7, 2007)

very helpful guys. Thanks so much. I'm learning a lot and hopefully I'll get some honey too.


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