Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

ocba - [ocba] Bee Questions

ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Haywood Rhodes <thrhodes AT hotmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] Bee Questions
  • Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2014 21:31:45 -0500

With the warmer weather over the weekend, I've delved into my hives to see how they look.  This is my second year so I'd appreciate any advice with respect to management.
 
My basic set up is two hives with two deeps and a medium super on top.  When I opened up both hives they looked remarkably similar.  The honey super on top looked to be >50% full and there were bees active in it.  The top deep was very active with new brood in various stages of development as well as pollen being stored and some honey as well.  The bottom deep in both was basically empty.  There were a few bees milling about, but the comb was devoid of any food stores or brood.  I saw a few small hive beetles, but they looked to be under control.  I also did a sugar shake test and had 3 mites in one and 4 in the other come out of the jar.
 
Now my questions:
1. I assume the hive has naturally migrated up in the boxes toward the food sources as winter has progressed.  Will they now naturally move back down and start raising brood in the lower deep?  Should I reverse the deeps or swap frames between the deeps?  If so when is the best time to do this?
 
2. With regards to pests, things seem to be in good shape.  I'll continue to monitor, but it seems like I don't need to do anything at this time.  Am I missing something?
 
3.  I would like to split at least one of the hives so I have at least three total.  What are the best ways to accomplish this?  Should I just take a number of frames with a mix of brood that has newly laid eggs and food from one deep, put it in another deep and hope for the best?  If so, how many frames of what distribution would you typically move?  Would it be better to just keep an eye on things and pluck a frame that may have a queen cell(s) on it either due to supercedure or swarming?  What should I look out for to determine the best time to do a split?  What nuances am I missing?
 
I also took no honey last year to be safe. Both supers were completely full going into winter.  I know it's impossible to predict how the honey flow will be now, but all others equal, what kind of reduction in honey production might I expect from the hive that I split?
 
Thanks,
Haywood Rhodes


  • [ocba] Bee Questions, Haywood Rhodes, 03/05/2014

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page