Comments on: Splitting the Hive

By: MUKISA ALEX

MUKISA ALEX — Fri, 19 Feb 2021 11:30:33 +0000

Thax alot 4 that information . can’t i split my hive using only two brood frames

By: Jan

Jan — Thu, 02 Apr 2020 16:50:24 +0000

Thank you for this wonderful informative and easily read information. New keepers get overwhelmed with everything out there and the easiest reading is always the best.
Teas, bees and blessings on you and your girls…jan

By: melvin

melvin — Mon, 10 Feb 2020 05:07:18 +0000

Thank You That make a lot of sense. I have watched SEVERAL videos
And your few paragraphs gave me more clarity than any of them.I have only had my bees since April 2019 ,and lest fall my inspector told me I should split them this spring. They are very prolific.
Thanks again. Melvin

By: Kevin McGillicuddy

Kevin McGillicuddy — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 00:39:40 +0000

Thank you for your awesome insight. I have opy one hive at this time. To purchase anuc right now, if I could find one would be too expensive. Have you ever done anything with package bees?

I am getting ready to do a split and I like your ideas.

Thanks again.

If you have a website that I could follow your success on that would be great.

God Bless All of Your Beekeeping

By: Maggie Watte

Maggie Watte — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 15:18:43 +0000

So when you did your split, is your split hive next to the hive from which it was taken? I’m a newbie and will be inspecting my colony here in Idaho soon.

By: Tom Smith

Tom Smith — Sat, 19 Nov 2016 15:24:36 +0000

What a brilliant idea the Top Entrance Bee Hive is. So simple and yet practical. I can’t see any objections to it and so will definitely try it out on a couple of hives come next spring. If I have any problems I’ll let you know

By: Cliff

Cliff — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 21:58:03 +0000

I did a hive split this spring. It was my first and has been mildly successful. There are a lot of good video’s on youtube and once I had poured and agonized over them for some time I went for it.
I could go into a lot of details but with limited space I’ll just say this.
My hive was 3 brood boxes and 1 honey super. The bees had brood in frames of all 3. (it was spring and while there was some honey on all the frames they were obviously interested in expanding the hive)
I grabbed 3 frames with brood in various stages from the deeps and 2 frames from the super. All with brood in them. Based on what I had seen in multiple video’s I didn’t worry about the queen at all. I placed the 3 deep frames in the brood box and placed the 2 frames from the honey super into another super and laced these directly over the 3 frames in the brood box. Internally it result in kind of a pyramid shape within the hive.
And that was it……
Within a month I had evidence of a laying queen in the new hive and it’s continued to grow all summer. currently hit has 2 deeps and a honey super on it.
The original hive has done exceptional. There are 2 deeps and 3 honey supers. It’s quite a towering hive and 2 of the honey supers are full and they are working on the 3rd. Last week it was about 30% full. I’m planning on harvesting from it in about 2 more weeks.
I’ll leave the split hive alone and let those bees continue with expanding the hive and getting ready for winter.
Despite all the agonizing the truth is it was really simple. The only trip being to wait until the hive you are taking the split from is beginning to fill with brood THEN making sure you take frames for the new hive that have brood in ALL stages of development.

By: Mike Rice

Mike Rice — Thu, 09 Jul 2015 20:50:43 +0000

When you do your splits, shouldn’t you put the old queen in the new split since she is the one that would leave anyway if they were to swarm? With queen cells present, the old queen normally stops or slows down egg production to get her weight down so she can fly. Just my thought.
Mike