Split a Beehive, Start to Finish, from Layens Horizontal Hive
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- čas přidán 1. 07. 2024
- This video covers the entire process of making a split from a Layens beehive, over a month and a half, from the original split to the outcome of the resulting colonies.
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Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
00:08 - About the Split
01:46 - Making the Split
03:28 - Marking the Queen
04:35 - Continuing the Split
07:35 - Checking for Queen Cells
10:06 - How an Emerging Queen gets Mated
13:42 - Please Like & Subscribe
13:52 - Inspection of New Colony
17:13 - Looking for a New Queen
22:09 - Big Surprise!
27:26 - Recap & Conclusion
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Fascinating and informative. I’ve been really hesitant on trying to build my own Layens frames. But I keep talking myself out of it because I absolutely abhor table saws. 😖
My table saw is one of my most valuable tools (in benefit, not in cost). But if it's not your thing that's okay - pre-assembled, wired frames are coming soon to suburbansodbuster.com. 😀
please keep doing the videos, they are so worthy to all of us beginners,,,,thank you so much
The best video you made so far. Highly informative, very well explained. Keep 'm coming, You have my thumbs up.
Thank you so much! Your feedback and encouragement made my day!
I agree, your presentation style is clear.
It’s enjoyable to watch.
Thank you.
Nice box has good straight lines ya should look at ally frames.
Queenless hives are more defensive. Weather plays a big part.
Yes a Queen right hive has a different hum, and will be less aggressive, all consider that your bees, have a built in barometer and can read the weather, so even though you don't now a storm is coming they do, and that can make them more aggressive. Anyway great video, as always. I did the bee presentation and it is online. It you would like I can send you the link, it has a lot of info that is not common knowledge about bees. Just spent the last 2 days teaching people how to build swarm traps. The rush is on for Canada to catch the spring build up. :))
Very helpful video as I am getting ready to make a hive split myself. Great channel and appreciate the content. Will be watching all previous and upcoming videos.
I'm glad you found the video useful.
Very informative..👍👍step by step
You mentioned an in-hive split (I have layens also). My impression was that even if split by a divider board, theyd just fly out their queenless hole and back to the queen-right side....(?)
House bees - those in their first three weeks of life who have never left the hive - will stay where they're put whether that's with or without the queen. Foragers, when they leave the hive, will orient to that location and will return to the same location regardless of whether that's where the queen is or not. If queenless, the bees' inclination is to try to make a queen - they don't go out to seek the queen.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Right. So if only the house bees are left in the split, then they have to make a queen, then queen has to mate, then lay, then hatch brood, seems like that colony would have an impossible task to survive...No?
It seems daunting, but this is basically what colonies go through when they swarm each spring. The swarming bees start from scratch but have a queen; those left behind start with a new queen who has to be mated, begin laying, etc. A split may take longer if the bees have to make an emergency queen from eggs or young larvae, but they'll typically have brood to maintain their population during the interim.
Queenless colonies, with queen cells or no, have been more defensive here!
You don’t Need queen cells for your bees to be aggressive all they need is to be Queen less , also . I have been keeping bees since 1971 and I got to be in the right place at the right time , one of my hives my queen went on a mating flight and i got to see her take off and come back , first time in 52 years ! and while she was gone they were aggressive, once the bees realize they are Queen less that’s when they get feisty 😈
That may be true in a general sense, but I've also noticed that a hive can be relatively gentle until I get to the frame with queen cells and then the bees may turn on me. I just inspected a hive with a new queen and hadn't found her yet, but as I started to lift the frame where she was the bees started bouncing off of my hands. That doesn't happen in every hive, but it was useful because it made me suspect that I was getting close to finding waldo (or might have been coincidental).
Insane to hear about the noise the queens make then murder there rivals.
It can be like "Game of Thrones" in the hive sometimes.
How do you keep the bees still in the original hive from following the Queen to the smaller swarm trap box, and vice-verse?
The forager bees are oriented to the original hive location and will always return to that location no matter where the queen goes. House bees (young bees which haven't yet left the hive) will always stay where they're put - they wouldn't leave the original hive to find the queen nor would they leave the new hive to return to the original. The only exception to this is if a colony swarms, in which case the swarming bees will travel with the queen.
I had an identical situation this season, thought I was queenless but she was tucked away and small and she will only keep 1.5 frames of brood
Similar story (spoiler for future video): I recently split a colony that was really strong and productive. After the split the queen took a break, to the point that the "queenright" side of the split dwindled in population, had no brood at all and I concluded that the queen had been lost somehow. Then, in a miraculous turnaround, the last inspection showed good population and brood at all stages. The bees often surprise me and I'm slowly learning not to be hasty to declare a hive queenless.
@@SuburbanSodbuster me too,every time I freak out and think it’s queenless something weird like this happens,so for me 5 weeks is a good time to use for judging intervals of Queen activity
So when do you need to move a swarm trap/split a couple miles away and then bring back as opposed to what you did with just putting them a short distance away?
Remember that the purpose for moving the new colony a few miles away is so that the forager bees will re-orient to the new location rather than just returning back to the old. So by placing the new colony just a few feet away I know that they are going to lose their current foragers - but they will retain their nurse bees. To balance the loss I prefer to move the queen with the new colony so they'll continue producing bees, uninterrupted, to make up for the loss. The source colony, in the original location, will have a brood break (if left to make a new queen) but they'll retain the foragers to continue gathering resources during that time.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Oh yes, of course. The split would only be missing out on the foragers. So your reasoning for moving the queen with the split makes sense. Thank you!
Once you have a successful in-HHive split (using a divider board), can one of the colonies be moved to new empty hive?
Yes - in fact two strong colonies wouldn't fit in the same hive for long. Once both colonies are established and queen-right then one should be moved out. Depending on the situation that move could be done in different ways.
you need to wait to put her back after you mark her. kill may kill her as they smell the marker. I had that happen 3 times before I knew it was a thing
That's a good consideration. Thankfully I haven't had that happen, but I usually try to wait about a minute to let the paint dry before putting her back. It makes sense that the smell could affect the bees' acceptance of the newly marked queen.
Question, why do u not use full sheets of foundation on your frames? To save on foundation ? Or just how u like doing it 😁thanks
It is an economical decision - I can make more frames from one sheet of foundation - but it also allows the bees to build out the rest of the comb naturally, with cell sizes as they determine rather than controlled by the foundation template.
I'm curious. I've only seen you with one marked queen, the one that went to Curly. Do you mark your queens ? You seem to be a mostly unsuccessful hunter of queens.
Every video of yours I see seems better than the ones before. Thanks for sharing.
I do try to mark all of my queens now, and I'm getting better at finding them but still don't always. It seems like I get good at queenspotting by the end of the season and then am out of practice in spring. Thanks for watching - I really appreciate it.
How often are queens available for sale during the year? Also, if you did purchase one, would it be a VR queen???
The availability of queens will depend on the ability for them to be mated in a given area. Naturally mated queens would generally be available from the beginning of swarm season through summer. Local climate will affect that, of course. Artifically inseminated queens may be available year-round from someplace, but to be honest I haven't done much queen shopping to be able to speak knowledgeably about that.
At some point I plan to do some queen rearing, mainly to have some on hand for splits. As you can tell from the video, I like being able to select and continue the genetics I like in my own bees. But I also wouldn't mind avoiding a brood break while a colony raises a queen.
If I were to purchase a queen it would be from a local, treatment-free breeder. I know of a few in my area that I've considered. Local is important for the colony to be instinctually in sync with the nectar flow and be able to be kept naturally without supplemental feeding. In turn this translates to a healthier colony overall.
There's someone in SE Missouri that specifically raises treatment-free queens. I'd do a Google search for it!
Those frames are so big. What kind of spinner do you use
I saw your comment on my other video ("Why I Prefer the Layens Beehive...") about extractors so maybe your question was answered there. Let me know if you need more information.
Also, if I wanted to split a hive of Italian bees and introduce a Russian queen, would I use this same method to move half of the bees and the original queen to a smaller box, and then add the Russian queen into the original box?
Or could I divide the hive in half in the same big hive box give one half the Russian queen?
Yes, you could do that. But the new queen shouldn't be added right away. Wait a few hours for the queenless colony to recognize that they're queenless and introduce the queen in a cage with a sugar plug. The bees should recognize that they're queenless within 3 hours. Before they realize they're queenless they aren't likely to accept the new queen.
As for dividing the hive within the same box or moving a portion with the queen to a new box, either way would work the same. Either way you would add the queen to the queenless side of the split for the same outcome.
Are the small insects crawling around on your frames, SHB? If so, are those numbers you see a concern to you? I'm new and learning
It's possible. It's been a while since I reviewed this video but if you can give a time reference I can look to see what you see. However, it's very common that the bees will herd the SHB to the ends of the hive and often corral them using propolis. Then, when I move the frames or divider board these propolis pens are broken and the beetles scatter (and I play whack-a-beetle with my hive tool). As long as the bees can cover the frames adequately to manage the beetles, I'm not too worried. So when I add frames I try not to give more space than the bees can effectively patrol.
How many frames of brood helps in your decision to split?
It's not so much the number of frames as the apparent strength of the source colony. A colony might have low numbers and 5 frames with small patches of brood. In comparison another might be building up quickly with a solid population and 3 frames packed with brood (along with frames of resources) The former might not be able to spare any frames for a split, while I might make a split from the latter. So it's not specific numbers as relative strength, and over time I start to know which hives are likely good (strong) candidates before looking at the frames.
@@SuburbanSodbuster thank you
What foundation are you using on your Layens frames?
Right now I'm just using some wax foundation for Langstroth frames, cut to width for the Layens (I bought two packages on sale). Originally I was cutting it into 1" lengths to use as starter strips, but that would sag and droop in hot weather. So I was using full height sheets and leaving the rest of the frame for bees to build naturally. But recently I've started cutting the sheets into 1/2 height (4 3/16 inches). I like letting the bees build natural comb in most of the frame, with some foundation just to guide them as they start.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Thanx for the reply! Looks Good!
If I make a split and want to provide them with a queen, do you know how that introduction would go?
Thanks for posting! Super timely since I'm hoping to split once or twice this month.
I saw in your other split video that you simply put the divider board up after splitting the supplies-- did you put this one into a swarm trap specifically because it was going to a different home (mine!)? And you weren't worried about moving it just across the yard because there weren't foragers to worry about?
I'll confess that I don't have experience with making splits with queens. I've always let my splits raise their own. But I suspect it would be the same as any other requeening: give the bees time to recognize that they're queenless, add the queen (in the cage) to let the bees get accustomed to her scent. Once the bees seem to be accepting of her (feeding her rather than trying to sting) then remove the plug and let the bees chew through the candy to release her. It could take a couple days overall, but still less than a complete brood break.
This split was done differently than the last because I already have colonies in both ends of this hive, and I was splitting both of them. I didn't get video of the Hive 1 split because my camera (phone) ran out of battery. That's a shame because the bees were VERY defensive and it would have been entertaining (for some) to watch. But it wouldn't have been very instructional - I basically grabbed some frames, threw them in the box, and called it done. At the time I didn't know for sure if this split would be going to you or into a new hive (to be built) but either way the swarm trap was just a temporary home. And your guess is correct - I knew the bees in the swarm trap would be losing their foragers so wasn't concerned about moving them just a short distance away.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Thank you! All that makes sense.
My biggest question that remains is the location. If I made a split inside a hive, I'd either need to 1. take it 3 miles for a week or two and bring it back to the new home, 2. only transfer brood/nurse frames to wherever I want or 3. move it incrementally (6' at a time) to the new home. Right?
Also, do you think nowish is too late to do a split?
I recently moved one of the colonies from my in-hive split. I didn't take video (kind of a "time's short - just get it done" thing) but I only moved them to another hive across my yard. First I put them into a swarm trap (kind of the reverse of installing a swarm), then moved the swarm trap at night and put them in the new hive the next day. I tried putting branches in front of the entrance, but I think most of the foragers ended up back at the original hive anyway. To be honest, that wasn't really a problem. The colony had built up strength and resources so a temporary lack of foragers didn't set them back much. And the remaining colony just gained the strength of those returning foragers. The in-hive split is convenient when space is lacking, and can help to balance the foragers (at first) but in some ways it's simpler to split the bees to a separate box from the start.
As for timing, I still think there's time this year for splits. As my own rule of thumb, here in Missouri I'd be willing to make splits through April and May and let the colonies requeen themselves, and through June with a queen to add. Splits could be done through July, but feeding will be necessary to build them up.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Super helpful as always- thank you!
Lost queen, i guess that's a risk...?
I recommend doing away with the wires in the frames. Instead put a dowel in the middle of the frame to support the weight of the top half of the comb the bees will build. Then an angled piece of wood in the top of the frame to guide the bees to build down the middle. the wax won't sag so much when it gets hot in summer like it does on the wires. Also when I go to harvest the honey, I can just cut the comb out of the frame- big cut comb! Then the bees will build all new fresh comb. A dowel in the middle is just all round better than wires, imo.
I was wondering about that...
To each their own. I prefer to use an extractor and return newer comb to the bees to re-use. I've started using cross-wired frames to provide better comb support and have also found that it often results in more even comb than straight wires.
@@SuburbanSodbuster Maybe a video about the different frame options, horizontal or vertical wired, or wood starter strips or wax or plastic foundation starter or dowels would be a good idea if you are up for it?
@@SuburbanSodbuster I was thinking. maybe the ultimate frame would have a horizontal 1/4 oak dowel to stop the horizontal wires from pulling the sides in? What thinks you?...