# Pull queen or leave alone?



## cwoodar0 (Jun 13, 2021)

If it were me I would do a 3 way split if I came out of winter that strong. You can walk away with the queen and a few resource frames then split the wet egg frames between two start up hives and see what happens..Youd be able to order queens if one fails and still make it for the second half of spring flow.... fwiw, I came out of winter with two steong hives that were each a deep and medium filled with brood/resources so I split them both. Then I went back into one to get 3 frames and 2shook frames for a neighbor that wanted to start a hive.


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## JustBees (Sep 7, 2021)

I'd shove a double screen board between the deep and the Med/Shallow boxes, If they have brood up into the medium.
Let them make a queen a avoid swarming and if the queen doesn't get mated, you just pull out the double screen and maybe do a mid season split. (try again)


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## psm1212 (Feb 9, 2016)

You have a booming colony in early Spring, which means you have roughly 3,237 options right now. Everybody will do something different. There are many "correct" responses.

What I cannot determine from your post is what your PRIMARY goal is. Is it to prevent swarming to maximize honey production or is it to make multiple nucs headed by daughters of this queen?

Your goals drive your decisions.

If you want to simply prevent swarming in order to maximize honey production, the use of a double screen board (or "Snelgrove" board) seems like a good option. Here is a great resource: The Many Uses of a Snelgrove Board by Wally Shaw. Remember, the author lives in Europe. When he says that May is the best time of year, he is not talking about South Carolina's May.

If you want to optimize nuc production, this is what I would do. I would take the entire hive and move it at least 10 feet away from its current location, but keep it in the same yard. At the original location, I would then set up a bottom board, a deep with 9 frames of foundation only and a new top. Next, I would take a single drawn deep frame from the parent hive (ideally with a little bit of open brood on it, but not necessary) and place it in the middle of my 9 frames at the original location. Then I would find my queen in the parent hive and move her to the original location and place her on the single frame there. I would put a couple of gallons of sugar syrup on this hive and leave her alone.

All of your foragers will return to this box. They will immediately revert to drawing comb with the syrup you provided them and will draw the entire box in a couple of weeks. You will likely have to feed more syrup in a week. BTW, you have a broodless colony now, so run out there and OAV at night when all of your foragers are at home.

Meanwhile, at the parent hive: 7 to 9 days after you move the parent hive to its new location, it is going to be LOADED with queen cells on multiple frames. Carefully go through each frame. Transfer each frame that has a queen cell into a nuc box. Before you place it in, destroy all but one queen cell on each frame. Add some capped brood and a frame of food stores to each nuc. Shake some bees into each nuc. Make sure you leave one queen cell in the parent colony. Move all nucs you just made to a new yard so your foragers will not fly back home. Here is a video of the process:

Fly Back Split
Fly Back Split=


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

I would take the queen and maybe 3 or so frames of sealed brood, and put it into different box with comb if you have it foundation if not, config like your standard of 1 deep and 1 medium, place it on the old stand.

place the eggs and bees from the old location in a new spot. Shake the bees from the shallow super into the old hive on the new location. (want nurse bees there and feild to back to the queen.
Then add the shook shallow super over an excluder on the old stand with the old queen.

If no queen cells were spotted then wait till capped QCs exist IE 4-6 days. if capped QC exist then split right then.
then go in and split the hive as many ways as you have cells and resources 2 or 3 should be doable.

get a couple queens from this hive
do swarm prevention split
re work to your 1D +1M standard

old location ends up with old queen, feild bees , 2-3 frames of sealed brood and the shook super on the old location.

moved box has nurse bees and stores and hopefully at least 2 frames with QCs.

GG


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## Ranger N (Sep 23, 2020)

psm1212 said:


> You have a booming colony in early Spring, which means you have roughly 3,237 options right now. Everybody will do something different. There are many "correct" responses.
> 
> What I cannot determine from your post is what your PRIMARY goal is. Is it to prevent swarming to maximize honey production or is it to make multiple nucs headed by daughters of this queen?
> 
> ...


PSM1212, I primary goal on this hive is to maximize honey production with out swarming if that is feasible. Thanks for your suggestions.


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## Ranger N (Sep 23, 2020)

Gray Goose said:


> I would take the queen and maybe 3 or so frames of sealed brood, and put it into different box with comb if you have it foundation if not, config like your standard of 1 deep and 1 medium, place it on the old stand.
> 
> place the eggs and bees from the old location in a new spot. Shake the bees from the shallow super into the old hive on the new location. (want nurse bees there and feild to back to the queen.
> Then add the shook shallow super over an excluder on the old stand with the old queen.
> ...


GG ,
great input and gives me some thing to ponder. Thank you.


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## Ranger N (Sep 23, 2020)

Thanks everyone for your input.

It was 70 degrees today and I went through the shallow and 2 mediums of brood and did not locate the queen. The wind started picking up and I did not want to chill brood so ended up taking a frame of mixed brood from each, condensing the brood nest in each of those boxes and added foundation frames to each side of the brood nest in each. Similar to OSBN. Placed the mixed brood frames in a NUC with a frame of honey and will see what happens. It is supposed to storm for the next 3 days so I will go back in after the weather turns favorable again, locate the queen and figure on another plan. I am wanting to maximize honey production on this hive so Hopefully, I can keep it from hitting the trees. 

Thanks again everyone. I will post an update on course of action in a few days.


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## Gray Goose (Sep 4, 2018)

Ranger N said:


> Thanks everyone for your input.
> 
> It was 70 degrees today and I went through the shallow and 2 mediums of brood and did not locate the queen. The wind started picking up and I did not want to chill brood so ended up taking a frame of mixed brood from each, condensing the brood nest in each of those boxes and added foundation frames to each side of the brood nest in each. Similar to OSBN. Placed the mixed brood frames in a NUC with a frame of honey and will see what happens. It is supposed to storm for the next 3 days so I will go back in after the weather turns favorable again, locate the queen and figure on another plan. I am wanting to maximize honey production on this hive so Hopefully, I can keep it from hitting the trees.
> 
> Thanks again everyone. I will post an update on course of action in a few days.


thanks for the update
if the queen is in the NUC the main hive should have QCs and no eggs.
And vrs visa if the queen is in the main hive the NUC should have no eggs and QCs

good luck.

GG


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