# Making splits



## marusempai (Sep 16, 2007)

So our hives both appear to have well and truly survived the winter. Yay! They are also busting at the seams with bees and we would like to make some splits/make some nucs from them. We had read that you can take five frames of bees and eggs, put them in a new hive, and they will make a new queen/fill up the hive, and this sounds like a fairly beginner-proof method to us. The question is this: how near can we put this new hive to the parent hive? Our "bee yard" area has room for two more hives, so we'd like to have them there, but are worried that all the bees will just go back home, leaving us with five frames of dead brood. All four hives would be about a foot apart, in a row. Alternately we thought maybe we could purposefully put the old queen in the new box - but it seems everybody does it the other way and this is only our second year, so what do we know. Suggestions?


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## Iddee (Sep 25, 2005)

I ALWAYS move the queen to the new box. I move 2 frames of brood, 2 frames of pollen and honey, and one frame of anything. Usually the frame with the queen on it. That keeps me from having to catch her. The bees on the brood frames are house bees that have never flown. They don't know they aren't home, so they stay with the brood. The stronger hive with the foragers and the most other bees, along with the most food have a better chance of surviving the approx. 30 days with no new bees.


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## marusempai (Sep 16, 2007)

Good to know, that makes sense, actually. We need to wait until the weather is better - wind is howling and it is very cold at night - gives me time to build more boxes at least.  But hopefully soon, lots and LOTS of bees! One of those hives I was sure was going to die but they look great now.


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## Terri (May 10, 2002)

The young bees that are caring for the brood are young enough to have never left the hive, so they will stay with the brood. When the young bees are old enough to be forager bees they will fly for the first time, and they will imprint on their new hive. 

Feed your split well, as the older forager bees will tend to return to their OLD home with their nectar and pollen. So the split will not have much food coming in until the young bees are old enough to forage.

The young bees will of course be of varying ages, from those that are too young to forage (these will stay in the hive and care for the brood) to those that are old enough to make their first foraging trip. And, a bee that is ready for forage for the first time will naturally imprint on the new hive, and she will return to the new hive with her load of nectar and pollen.


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## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

The nuances of making splits was one of the harder concepts for me to wrap my brain around, and may still not have the principles correct in my head.

I find it rather remarkable how a colony of bees can detect they have lost their queen and so long as they have young enough brood (or is it called eggs or larvae), they will just up and make a new queen. Amazing to me.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

The queen has her own special phermon, way different than workers and drones. When the Phermon is no longer present in th ehive or isn't a strong the bees will make queen cells to make a new queen.

I raise my own queens and only take about 3 day old larva for this. 3 day old larva looks like a tiny c laying a milky looking substance at that age. 

Haveing the queen from the original colony in the nuc will help keeping the bees of any age you put in th enuc to stay.

there are other ways to do splits if you want to buy a queen too. Or use the same method with a clock board.



It is useing a double screen board to keep the queen from the top box yet allowing the heat from the bottom box to keep the top box warm.



 Al


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## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

The double screen would be one piece of equipment I never fully understood. It made sense to me to split frames so a new queen could be created. A queen excluder, frames moved, and a new box on top seemed to make sense. Workers can come and go but the queen must stay below due to the excluder. 

What different use is the double screen? Visually, I would take the guess that you might place 2 nucs on top, each with five frames. Is that correct? If not, help me understand when an excluder is used versus a double screen. Thanks.

Now I have looked at your photo and that definately in not 2 nucs. Color me confuzzled.


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## Michael W. Smith (Jun 2, 2002)

You don't want to make a split too early in the season - especially with cold weather. Most foragers will go back to the old hive - so you have to have enough bees left in the hive without the queen - to cover and keep the brood warm or they will chill and die.

Remember, you also have to have drones in order for the virgin queen to mate - so make sure there are plenty of drones.

Many people make splits by simply dividing and making sure both hives have newer eggs, pollen, and honey - no need to find the queen and make sure she is in a certain hive.


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

A queen excluder is used when you put honey supers on because they allow the workers to carry nectar up into the honey supers. It also allows the queens pheromone to rise so the workers in the honey super know they are still in a queen right hive.

The double screen allows the heat from a bottom hive full of bees to raise up to the top box to help heat the hive with less bees and also when you have a caged queen being installed in the split rather than letting the bees make their own. It also works when I install a well developed queen cell in the hive that is about ready to hatch.

 Al


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## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Ok, trying to make sense of that. A queen excluder lets pheromones thru, but a double screen does not, so they will create a queen over a double screen. 

Unless an excluder does not pass heat, they seem to be the same. 

Queen excluder permits workers through. Doesn't the double?

All I can get is that somehow the double screen keeps the queen pheremone out where the queen excluder does not and allows the creation or acceptance of a new queen. Is this right?


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## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

The double screen is 1/8" hardware cloth to small to all workers to pass thru. It also has a separation of the two screens of an inch then a 3/4 inch rest above. With out a clock board I don't think the bees would raise a queen from eggs. It works when releasing a boughten caged queen because her scent will be stronger in the top box. It also works with a fully developed queen cell about ready to hatch.

Benton 3 hole wood queen shipping/installing cage.





JZBZ plastic queen shipping/installing cage.

 

 Al


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## thericeguy (Jan 3, 2016)

Ok, I think that was clear. Queen excluder just keeps eggs from being laid where you want only honey. The double screen causes the stack to functionally be two hives because no bees can pass, but allows the heat benefit of a larger hive. Thanks.

Also learned about Cloake boards from your comments.


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## marusempai (Sep 16, 2007)

We made our split last week - couldn't find the queen, but made sure both sides had plenty of eggs - the big hive still has eggs and the little hive has queen cells! Very exciting. Thanks again for the advice, that went far more smoothly than I thought it would.


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