ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers
List archive
- From: Rob Cook <crookkohler AT bellsouth.net>
- To: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>, Rob Zelt <robzelt AT robzelt.com>, "ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org" <ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [ocba] Splits
- Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2017 19:26:01 +0000 (UTC)
Thanks. It helped me.
Rob
On Thursday, February 23, 2017 6:50 PM, Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com> wrote:
Rob,
To make a split, you must have two things above all else:
- Lots of bees and brood
- Drones in the area to mate with the virgin queen that the split will raise. (You could add a store-bought queen but those won't be available for another 7 weeks.)
#1 is easy to check. For #2, about the only way to easily
estimate whether there are drones in the area is to see whether
YOUR colonies have drones. It is important to note that YOUR
virgin queens will NOT mate with the drones from YOUR bee yard
(that is, if everything goes the way it is supposed to), but if
YOU have drones, chances are that other colonies in the
surrounding area do too. (FYI, the instinctive flight pattern
& flight distance is different for drones and queens, so the
Grand Plan is for queens to go to Drone Congregation Areas outside
the range where drones from the same colony go, thus avoiding
inbreeding.)
You actually could go ahead and make a split without seeing
mature drones if you see purple-eyed drone pupae, because they
should emerge and mature in time to be ready to mate with a virgin
queen. But if all you see are drone pupae and no actual drones, I
would worry about having enough drones for a virgin to be
well mated.
At this time of year, it is likely that #2 is the biggest
limiting factor. But if you've got both #1 and #2 covered, you are
good to go.
Keep in mind that although we are having warm days lately, we
still are having cold nights. If you make splits with a high
brood-to-nurse bee ratio and the bees have to cluster tightly at
night, they may leave brood outside the cluster "footprint". That
brood will chill and die. So we need a large nurse bee-to-brood
ratio for early-season splits. That isn't a show-stopper, just
something to look out for.
You can also find some helpful tips in the article <here>.
Does this help at all?
Randall
On 2/23/2017 6:11 PM, Rob Zelt wrote:
Hi,
Curious to hear peoples opinions/recommendations on the
local factors contributing to the timing of performing a hive
split? Is soon too soon?
Thanks in advance,
Rob
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-
[ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Shadi Cinpinski, 02/23/2017
-
Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
-
Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Mark Waller, 02/23/2017
-
[ocba] Splits,
Rob Zelt, 02/23/2017
-
Re: [ocba] Splits,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
- Re: [ocba] Splits, Rob Cook, 02/24/2017
-
Re: [ocba] Splits,
Rob Zelt, 02/26/2017
- Re: [ocba] Splits, Walter Starks, 02/26/2017
-
Re: [ocba] Splits,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
- Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question, Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
-
[ocba] Splits,
Rob Zelt, 02/23/2017
-
Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Mark Waller, 02/23/2017
-
Re: [ocba] 1st year bee-keeper question,
Randall Austin, 02/23/2017
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