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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: "Thomas Grizzle" <griz AT mindspring.com>
  • To: <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [ocba] Moving a Split
  • Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2013 19:15:54 -0400

Hey y’all,

 

A bee buddy (Jerry Schoendorf) and I did a split last weekend of the one hive I have been nurturing since April 2012.  It was past time to do the split, with two deeps packed full of bees and brood, but very little honey.  I have been feeding them since mid-January.  Jerry and I attempted the split a la Randall Austin’s advice a while back on this listserv, move the queen to a new hive and put the queenless hive in the original location so the queenless hive has more bees when foragers return.  However, despite examining both sides of all 20 frames, we could not find the queen.  So we punted and hoped for the best.

 

We set a new hive with one deep about 20 feet away from the old hive, and left the old hive in place.  The frames were categorized (e.g., brood, drones, food, etc.) and distributed roughly equally between the two hives.  We walked away feeling pretty good about the split.  The next day we went back into both hives and added a deep because they were still very crowded and we had seen some swarm cells.  The extra deep initially had a lot of wired foundation, so we “wove” the frames with foundation into the crowded frames, hoping that would speed up drawing out the cells.  We also added two Beetle Jails to each hive because we had seen several small hive beetle.   

 

Next weekend Jerry and I plan to go back into the two hives and see how they are doing, are they drawing out the comb, what is the population like in each hive, etc.  We are going to check the beetle traps too, and plan to do a sugar shake in an attempt to estimate varroa mites.  We may add a shallow super with cut comb foundation, so they can start drawing out the cells. 

 

Now our question.  At two weeks after our split, it is time to move the two hives side by side.  What is the best way to do this?  Wait until nightfall and move the hive intact to its new location next to the old hive (about 20’ away)?  Move it a little at a time, 5’ per day?  Some other way?

 

Thanks!

Tom




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