#making splits

Hive Report: Waitingnot Patiently!

Somehow work appears to get in the greatest way of hobbies and typically even cookingto a irritating extent (youve seen no current posts, huh?). However one should work so as to cook dinner, eat, and so as to assist the creatures of the hive.

Although I did see bees on the short Januarycheck after we had few fairly unseasonably heat days in February and I noticed bees flying out and in of the…

Catching up on these! I lost a lot of my notes last year when I lost my phone, so I gotta get better about transcribing them onto here. Other new innovation - writing myself a short goal/instruction for each site, to sum up what I ought to be doing after reading through last week’s notes.

Plantation: Determine which have queens and whether the queenless ones are making them.

Okay, so both hive 1 and 3 retained the queens when I made the splits, meaning the queens were further down, as you might expect. Hive 2 - which was split from hive one - failed. There’s no bees in it all; they have abandoned brood, they started some queen cells, but they didn’t get very far. I don’t know what happened there. 

Hive 4, however, has some capped queen cells - actually kind of a lot of capped queen cells, but I’m afraid to bust any of them up in case that was the one that was going work out. I wasn’t sure what to do: that’s twice now that hive 1 has failed to split. 

I don’t know if there’s something about that first hive or what. I wasn’t going to repeat it today, but in hive 3 I found some open queen cells that were being fed, had larvae in them, so I took that frame and other frames of brood and food and moved it into hive 2 - meaning hive 2 and 4 are both splits from 3 now. I wasn’t sure I should weaken 3 again, but they would swarm if I didn’t so that’s the choice I made. Hopefully it’ll work out. Hive 3 therefore has extra space in the brood and honey areas, from what I took out for 2. I also added a box to 1 and 3. I hope I have not fucked it all up.

GF: Check 1, 2, and 4 but don’t mess with 3 except to maybe open the lid and see that they have the space they should.

Hive 1 is doing great. They had pretty much filled box two with brood, in box three they’re doing some great nectar stuff, but box one just had some nectar and a little brood, so I switched one and two. Hopefully the queen will get up there and lay. I do not want them swarming and I didn’t have the equipment to make any more splits. 

Hiv 2 is also coming along well, still smaller population but strong, bringing in that nectar. 

Hive 3: I opened up and looked through the top box a little bit before reminding myself that I shouldn’t mess with them. I saw a lot of drones in there, but I don’t think that there’s been enough time for a laying worker to start laying and drones to actually emerge, so it’s probably just that they were the last thing to hatch. Their queen cells should have hatched by now. In a couple of days I can check to see if a new queen is laying, but I didn’t want to fuck her up, as it’s maybe a little too early right now. 

Hive 4 queen is laying wall to wall. I just checked to see that she was doing well and shut it back up. I don’t know if I should checkerboard her into the second box or not, so I didn’t. I did see the queen, and she was on the second to outside frame - you know, the one you take out first because the queen is almost never there - so that’s actually as far as I inspected in that one. 

Come back again soon check again. Hopefully number 3 will have a functional queen, and the others will be having some honey soon.

GBF: Inspect 2 and add a box. Peek into 1 to see if they’ll need more space but resist the urge to fully inspect.

Hive 1 was capping honey in their third box. I did not look any lower than that, so I’ve given them a fourth box of mixed foundation and wax-moth-victim frames. 

Hive number 2 is doing great. The queen is laying wall to wall, so I checkerboarded it within the first box, moving some frames around. I also took two frames of nectar and pollen out of there and moved them up into the second box that I added today, and put those empty frames down in the bottom. They have a mixture of built out and partially built out frames and some new foundation in their second box.

Plantation: The split that I made last time did not work - just found untended brood dying and some listless bees - so I have made walk away splits from both hives 1 and 3, meaning I checked that I had at least two boxes with eggs and brood in them, then removed one of those boxes entirely and put it on a new base. So I don’t know where the queen is but both sides will have the ability to make a new queen. Maybe I’ll leave them alone a little longer this time and be prepared to buy a queen if I need to; I don’t know yet, we’ll see. 

Therefore hive 1 is still hive 1 and hive 2 is a split from that. Hive 3 was split into 3 and 4. Once I’m able to determine where the original Queens are I’ll make a note of it and maintain the numbering left to right facing them.

GF: Hive 1 was making better use of their space and filling it up quickly, so I’ve given them a third box. Hive 2 is coming along, not using their second box much yet but they’re working. 

Apparently when I made the split last week I accidentally took the queen and put her in the split which I didn’t mean to do. It was risky because I could have killed her, but therefore hive 3 is now the “split”. They have made and capped at least five queen cells, so I’m letting them work that out. I should not disturb them again until those queens will have had a chance to hatch, mate, and begin laying. I will need to look up the exact timing of that, but it’s going to be a couple of weeks. 

Hive 4 therefore has the queen from number 3. They’re doing great, lot of activity. My mistake seems to be working out well! I gave them a second box and am no longer feeding them, as I don’t think they need it. I’m not sure they were quite ready for the second box but it’s April: Go big or go home.