Splits

Date: Fri Apr 24, 2009
Time: 2:30 - 4:30pm
Weather: Clear, breeze, lower 80s

I made the split. Actually 2 of them. I moved the parent hive (#1) to a new location. I put one new hive (#2) in the parent's old location. I placed two bars of brood, bees, pollen and honey in #2 and a few shakes of bees. I also placed two brood bars into #3, but they collapsed as I was trimming them to fit the new design. I left them in #3, with some shakes of bees.

I got one sting behind my right thumb as I was trimming side attachments, so I went ahead and got some gloves on. I still didn't see the queen, but there was still plenty of sealed brood, larvae, and a lot more drone brood. I think the queen is still in #1, but I guess we'll see. There's a good flow going right now, so I'm not feeding. Hope everything works out. I gotta get some pics of the new setup.

Lessons learned:

• To trim comb to fit the new boxes, turn the bar upside down and hold to the comb as you cut. Also, you could shake bees off comb first.
• Keep on top of cross comb. the bees don't like me cutting their side attachments, either.

I also built a 5 bar nuc from 1/2" plywood. I think it will come in handy as the swarm season kicks in. I gotta get my other two hives built and hopefully get some bees in them before much longer.