# Vertical split- now what



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

If you don't want more colonies, don't leave it alone. (Though you may already be too late and have a virgin queen in there now if you made the split on the 4th with at least one charged that wasn't destroyed at the time.)

If you had acted earlier (say about six days after the split) to cull the queen cells you saw, plus any more that they have made since you did the split it would have avoided allowing a virgin to hatch out. By that time they couldn't have made any more cells, so they would then be hopelessly queenless. 

I wouldn't be in too big a hurry to add more bees to the lower section as that will only ramp up the swarm risk, again earlier than necessary. Let the brood in the upper box hatch a bit more and make sure they have room to store nectar. Without a queen they won't swarm.

If you have a virgin and she gets mated you will have another colony by the time you check again in 21 days. You can kill that queen, or the one in the lower box and recombine.

The good thing about a Snelgrove board is that you can arrest a swarm; separate a big whack of the brood to relieve additional swarm pressures in the queenright colony while still building a large colony that will collect a lot of honey; and if you prevent queen cells from hatching in the upper section you will have a queenless section to recombine later. You don't want to wait to long to do the recombine, though, to avoid a laying worker issue. A couple of weeks w/o brood is all I'd risk (that's without _brood_, not without a _queen_.) When you recombine don't cram them into a double deep, however.

A well-populated double deep colony isn't very large, IMO. My colonies winter triple deeps (10-frame) and my strongest ones are now in four deeps, awaiting the right moment to split them. I'm hoping to get them through the next week or two. I am pretty sure I can get them through next weekend. That long rainy week before Memorial Day weekend will be the challenge. I'm watching them very carefully and tipping them up looking for swarm cells every 5 or 6 days. But I have strong anti-swarm manipulations already underway - so I think my chances are good.

As you get more experience with SB, you'll find all kinds of useful things to do with them.

Why are you planning to OAV just at the height of early nectar collection? You have to take the supers off to do OAV -do you expect the nectar to capped by then? You can't really OAV the two sections at once with a SB in place. I would wait until they are either recombined, or split into two.

What was your most recent sugar roll count?

Enj.


----------



## Scitfrostbite (Aug 15, 2015)

Enj- thanks for the advice. I would love to produce a new queen up top and recombine with below (after finding and eliminating the third year queen). Finding the queen is always a challenge for me. Shook bees down to put queen below SB per Shaw article.

When I started out keeping bees I used to do early July and late October mite treatments. July was too late last yr for many hives around my area. I've bumped first treatment up to June and was lucky to have better survival rates. I have not tested hives this spring but others in my area are already reporting concerning mite levels. Normally I just remove supers and OAV and return supers. With the vertical split it's going to be a pain in rear removing everything to treat. Could I be ready to re-combine split after one month? Then, treatment would be way easier.


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

I use OAV, too. And I think you are missing a huge opportunity if you don't do an OAV treatment during the broodless period of the early winter. That single (no need for a series) treatment is extremely effective because as you know OAV only kills phoretic-state mites and at that point in the colony's life there is virtually no brood, so all the mites in the whole colony are phoretic.

But the best thing is that also coincides with a long period when there is little to no flying so once you kill the phoretic mites in your treated colonies, they stay clean because no mites are being brought in againf or several months.

That means your winter bees are freed from the awful burden of mites chewing on them all winter long. And the first rounds of brood are born into as nearly mite-free environment as can be had these days. And those first bees are the nurse bees for your main build-up later in the spring.

I find that with a good clean-up in Dec. or January my bees stay at such low levels they don't need treatment again until mid-summer, while many beekeepers in my area often give their bees a spring treatment and then an additional early summer one, too, just to ride herd on the mites. Then they need more treatment in the fall, etc.

You will have the benefit of a brood break in the upper section while you are getting a queen raised so that will help up there. Once you see your new queen laying, you can treat those bees too. Although it's tempting to try and get them before any of the brood is capped I find it hard to hit the sweet spot when waiting for a new queen to get out, mated, and laying without taking any chances of interfering with her mating by checking on the progress too much. 

Enj.


----------



## Scitfrostbite (Aug 15, 2015)

Enj- i should have been more clear. I OAV June three times, first of October three times, and December 1st once. Used to be thanksgiving but recent warm winters has me waiting a little longer for the broodless treatment first of December.

I really like this vertical split thing. So far the hive has not swarmed but hot week ahead will test my efforts to prevent this swarm. Someone told me that they just recombine the split after swarm season and let the queens fight it out? Does this really work? You done this? I assume it would be better to pinch a queen first, no?

Thank you for advice.


----------



## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Snelgrove boards are the nuts! I don't understand why so few people use them. I don't think your already-divided hive will swarm as it sounds as though you left the queenright part with ample space to grow, and a much-diminished population for the moment. I think they will settle down and make honey, instead. And the part that is making its own queen now won't swarm, as long as there aren't too many virgins developing. I never leave more than three cells - two is the usual number recommended, but I hate culling queen cells!

Yes, you could recombine and let the queens duke it out, but there is still the chance that both of them may be injured or killed in the process, leaving you queenless again. A better way, in my view, is to manage the split so it doesn't re-queen itself and you can then simply recombine with only a single queen. But this takes very tight timing to accomplish.

Of course, the split can also be seen as a nuc that you might wish to overwinter like Mike Palmer advocates.

It's a smart move to wait on the broodless-period one-shot treatment until flying has ceased. You are correct that the recent, absurdly warm and absurdly lengthy, fall seasons allow for extended periods when there is nothing to do but go out and pillage weaker colonies, and bring home some souvenir mites. I am north of Albany and I wait, and wait, for when the flying is finally done and then zap them. Thats why I usually wind up OAVing after Christmas. I watch my sticky boards all winter long and if I think there are still enough mites left, I will give them a second shot in late January, or very early Feb. That really does the trick as far as smacking the mite levels down as low as I possibly can. A much-lower starting point, re-sets the growth curve of the mite population build-up throughout the following spring and summer.

Enj.


----------



## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

If you went to the effort if shaking down the whole hive to get it under the SB, why didn't you shake them into a sieve box? That way you could have found your old queen and put her in a nuc.


----------



## Scitfrostbite (Aug 15, 2015)

bentonkb said:


> If you went to the effort if shaking down the whole hive to get it under the SB, why didn't you shake them into a sieve box? That way you could have found your old queen and put her in a nuc.


Decided to give a Snelgrove board technique a try. I like it and I'm going to make another SB or two. While I may end up with a nuc anyway, my goal is to prevent a swarm and not make new hives so the SB seemed like the right technique. I might not have executed it perfectly (so far) but I'm encouraged by results at the moment.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll look up using sieve box.


----------



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

You will find a big difference in the amount of energy to merely shake hard enough to know the queen is not on the frames you put aside, compared to the diligence you need to get the bees to go down through a shaker screen without having the queen go over the side. If you have a lot of young drones you will not simply be able to look in and see the queen smiling up at you.!

I use the shaking down method to get the queen in lower box when setting up but only shake through the excluder method when I actually want the old queen in my hands. I have done quite a few recombines in the fall by just pulling the division board out and assuming the young queen in most cases wears the crown going into winter. This year I want to be a bit more selective so will put a bit more effort into finding the older queens.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

crofter said:


> I have done quite a few recombines in the fall by just pulling the division board out and assuming the young queen in most cases wears the crown going into winter. This year I want to be a bit more selective so will put a bit more effort into finding the older queens.


Frank, why are you going to be more selective? The results in the past have left you doubts about the generalized thought that the new queen wins the duel with the older queen, or the reason is other?


----------



## Scitfrostbite (Aug 15, 2015)

Frank- to clarify, you're saying you recombine with the two queens and let the hive sort it out? Have you ever had a queen issue from doing this? Thanks


----------



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

scitf....
I have read lots of bee keepers in fall combine hives and let the bee dicide which queen is best. I know it is on randy olivers site that he does it. Most seem to think that the bees usually pick the best queen out of the two to end up in spring with. I am guessing if you did this and one of the hives had a virgin queen you would end up with the virgin and if she didn't make it back from mating flight you might have issues. I know when I caught a small swarm last year, I newspaper combined it with another one based on reading what I have typed above and had no issues.
Cheers
gww


----------



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Eduardo Gomes said:


> Frank, why are you going to be more selective? The results in the past have left you doubts about the generalized thought that the new queen wins the duel with the older queen, or the reason is other?


In the past I was mostly achieving swarm control with the division board and secondarily renewing the previous queen. Last year I brought in 3 new queens for diversity (possibly no other bees withing flight range for mating). I will want to know which queen survived to judge effects. Snelgrove felt that about 80% of the time the younger queen takes over.



Scitfrostbite said:


> Frank- to clarify, you're saying you recombine with the two queens and let the hive sort it out? Have you ever had a queen issue from doing this? Thanks


No, on a least 6 occasions there have been no hives go queenless. With both queens unmarked and dark I really did not know who succeeded. That was daughter / mother succession but this year I will be fostering some unrelated queens so that might have some effect on how likely they are to co habit etc. I have always waited till the new queen was laying well.


----------



## Eduardo Gomes (Nov 10, 2014)

Good luck, Frank!


----------



## Scitfrostbite (Aug 15, 2015)

Very useful info in this thread. Thank you. The Snelgrove board seems like such a valuable tool. But seems like so few beekeepers use them. For me- vertical splits/Snelgrove boards was never mentioned in association bee school and it took me some years to discover it on my own. Plus its use seems kind of complicated at first glance but really it's not.

Any problem with recombining with both queens as soon as I have a laying queen up top? People mention recombining in the fall, why wait until fall?


----------



## gww (Feb 14, 2015)

Scitf.....
I news paper combineded mine in early june, the reason I mentioned fall is due to that is when poeple do the most combineing for winter and so why it is mentioned in thier writeing. My view is if it works then it probly always works more then not and it did work for me.

So, I am not frank and don't have any experiance but have read lots that bees forget about swarming when they get on a real flow and are making lots of wax.

I don't know how to judge when that is but have read that is when some recombine. 
Cheers
gww


----------



## Scitfrostbite (Aug 15, 2015)

vertical split questions- I have another hive full of qcells. I cut/pinched all of cells (fingers crossed) to buy me some time. I don't want more hives and will using SB. How long do I have to get the Snelgrove board on after removing cells to buy some time? I'm looking at a rainy week.

Do you guys add deeps when you vertical split? I had one out of control huge hive that add a deep, so two deeps and two supers below the SB. Another separate hive got one deep above the SB and one deep below with two supers.

I look forward to any feedback that can be offered. Thanks


----------

