# Fly back split ----- can't find the thread



## Rader Sidetrack

Probably? this one ...
http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?303881-Spring-Split-Last-light-or-Midday
Lauri's posts start at #17.

This thread has links to to the first one: http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...ionless&p=1529913&highlight=split#post1529913


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## Brad Bee

That's it. Thanks. I think it's basically just a Taranov split, not the reinvention of the wheel, but I wanted to read the whole thing, when I had time. How did you find it? I think you have every post in beesource history bookmarked in alphabetical order.


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## gww

Brad
When you mentioned fly back split, this is what came to my mind.
http://dave-cushman.net/bee/rogerpattersonmethod.pdf

I have watched a vidio on utube of this also. 
They make it look easy.
cheers
gww


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## Rader Sidetrack

Brad Bee said:


> How did you find it? I think you have every post in beesource history bookmarked in alphabetical order.


First off, the search box in the upper right of each normal forum page is pretty worthless.

Instead, use Advanced Search, here: http://www.beesource.com/forums/search.php?search_type=1#ads=1
One thing to keep in mind is that there are lots of options there, but you can set the ones you like as a 'default' and then Save that setting with the button in the bottom left. That is important because the "Search Single Content Type" (up top) works better for me, but may not be the default for you. Also, I prefer "Show Results as [Posts]" rather than threads (near bottom).

As far as finding the thread in question, since you mentioned _Lauri_, I put her name in the User Name box, and "split" in the Keyword box. After that it was just a matter of reviewing a couple of results. 

Note that none of the search options available (except the Google Custom Search* on the home page) will search for terms of 3 characters or less. You can't search for DCA or AFB or AHB, for instance.

Another option I use often is an ordinary Google search, but limiting results to just Beesource with the "site:beesource.com" keyword. A sample search phrase for "afb" limited to just Beesource might look like this:
afb site:beesource.com

A slick feature is that one can click the "Images" tab in the results and use it to see photos that have been displayed in the threads returned by the search results.




* Google has announced that they will be retiring Custom Search in the near future, so there isn't much point starting to use that. Instead, get used to the "site:" keyword mentioned above. You can use the "site:" keyword at sites other than Beesource as well.

PPS: I don't maintain any bookmarks for "normal" Beesource threads. New threads are posted all the time, and at a rapid rate. Bookmarks would soon need their _own_ search system. I do have some bookmarks for "special" posts by a few of Beesource's more .... mmm ... _colorful_ ... denizens. 

.


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## gww

Rader
Great totorial on searching. You are one handy guy.
gww


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## Brad Bee

Thanks for the info Graham. Maybe I'll figure it out. You're right, the search box at the top right of the page is useless.


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## beepro

Why not look through your history to find yesterday's infos. It is categorized by the day, week and month also. Whenever I
lost a link the infos is in my browsing history. Very handy for looking up past browsing.


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## awootton

> I think it's basically just a Taranov split,


to me the flyback split is the same as an artificial swarm, but pre-emptive rather than in response to the bees starting swarm cells. Lauri's comment about it getting the bees fired up into swarm wax drawing mode is notable.


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## beepro

Here is what I like to try. Move the original hive to a new bee stand a few feet away. Place a weak nuc with a laying queen in
the original hive location. All the foragers will beef up the weak nuc hive. In 2 weeks move the hive to another location and place
another weak nuc there. With many foragers depleted they will switch to rebuild mode again instead of swarm mode. At this stage using the opening up the brood nest method should curb any future swarming. No honey dome until the early Autumn time.


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## Brad Bee

I've now done my first fly back split. I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but it's done. I was able to find the queen quickly. As luck would have it she was on a frame of drone comb that was loaded with pollen and nectar. I moved the frame with the queen to a new deep on a new bottom board right beside the original hive. I then broke down the double deep with 2 supers and moved them up to my site at the barn, about 700 feet away. I set up another new hive on a 3 hive bench and shook all the bees off onto a ramp in front of the hive. I had put some frames with foundation into the big hive last Saturday and one of them was partially drawn. After shaking off all the bees I took it back to the old hive location and placed it in the center of the hive with the old queen. By that time there were at least 3 frames of bees back in their original spot. I'm sure more will fly back tomorrow. If I did anything wrong, I didn't do this early enough in the day. It was about 5:30 before I got the bee shaken out. 

I hope that this helps to hold the old queen for another few months. She's the best one I've ever had and I'm trying to make as many daughters as possible. The bees have been trying to supersede her for the past 3 weeks. I tore down lone supersedure cells last Saturday and the one before. In hind sight I should have made splits with them, using bees from another hive. 

I'll be interested to see how this whole fly back split works. There was a whole lot of bees that walked into the new hive, in the new location. Enough that I ended up using bees from the hive to make a split with the supersedure cell they had capped. Our flow should be wide open by weeks end and I'm hoping that since all the brood will be capped by middle of next week that the hive will put up a lot of honey. I found another frame with one queen cell with larvae in it and left it in the new hive. I'm going to check them late week and see if they've made more cells.

If the forager bees in the old location aren't drawing comb in a couple of days, I guess I'll need to put a feeder on them.


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## msl

love to here how yours turn out 
I did two on Friday on some TB nucs that were out of space. They were working hard drawing comb today.
my worry (post split of corse, lol) is it leaves almost all the Vitellogenin in the old hive and the the foragers that convert back to nurse bees need to digest pollen in to protein for both the brood and the forage force


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## beepro

Having all the foragers in the original hive without any nurse bees will set them back a bit only 4 day until new eggs hatched again. I
would put a frame of open larvae in there to convert some young foragers back. A frame with about to emerge bees and attaching bees should keep the hive going for a while after the older foragers died. Here is what I would have done differently next time. Instead of moving the split to another location, move the queen instead. This way more resources are coming in to build bigger QCs at the original location. Instead of following you tube to make QCs in a confined bee environment, I'm using this open fly back method to make better cells. This will be my 4th years into it. Since the moved queen will not have any foragers for a few weeks, depending on how strong you made this split, more bees should be added to keep her laying. Also feed both the original and the split hive with patty subs. And give more empty drawn comb to the laying queen hive. As long as she is not overcrowded and have plenty of space to lay the hive should be expanding normally for another season.


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## Brad Bee

I took a peek in the "fly back hive" today. When I checked them today, it had been about 36 hours since I had done the split. I had the state inspector with me when I checked it. I don't know if he was intrigued or confused when I told him what I had done. LOL Two hours after the split, there were 3 frames of bees, now there are bees on every frame in the box. They aren't clustering like they were Sunday evening but still I know that many more flew back from the new hive location on Monday, just like they should. Even though it had only been 36 hours since the split, they had started drawing comb on 4 frames of foundation. I still grin when I see new white wax, and at the speed they jump on the double waxed Acorn foundation, I get to grin a lot more than I use to. :grin:

Bees never cease to amaze me. Since old bees are foragers and that's all that's in the hive, I know they have to "revert" to draw comb. They sure do revert in a hurry when they have to.

The other hive with all the nurse bees have a couple nice queen cells started. So far, so good. If this works like it's headed, this is going to become a much more frequent method of splitting and swarm prevention for me.


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## RayMarler

Yes Brad, and a whole lot easier than the Taravov swarm process. Sounds great to me!


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## beepro

I don't like this method of splitting because the bees will never make any surplus honey on the flow. I will either wait until almost at the
end of the flow to make a split or continue to expand the brood nest until mated queens are available for sale in May. This way they don't swarm away and
at the same time make you some honey during the flow.


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## Brad Bee

Beepro if you don't like it, that tells me I may be on the right track.

I'm reporting back with update of the "Fly Back Split." It was a great success. All in total, I was able to turn a 2 deep hive and 2 drawn supers, into 2 double deep hives, 2 nucs, 40 new frames of foundation drawn, and 2 supers of surplus honey in a 6 weeks. The original location produced 19 new frames of foundation and I used it to make another split, with 4 more frames of foundation drawn out. The split off part of the hive, in the new location got 10 frames of drawn comb and 2 supers placed above a queen excluder. They pulled out several queen cells and I used one and 2 frames of brood and bees to make another nuc. The original split filled the 2 supers while raising and waiting on a queen to mate, then I gave them another deep to draw out and they did. The nuc got the remaining frames drawn while waiting on the queen to hatch and mate. I added another 5 frame nuc above their original 5 about 10 days ago. They now have those mostly drawn. 

This is BY FAR the most easy and most productive way to do a split that I have ever tried. I've always used splits to draw comb and that works, but it is so much faster when you have a huge field force in a new hive with no where to store nectar. To say they draw comb in a hurry is an understatement. 

I got 13 mated queens this past week. I have 9 left to install and make up splits to put them in. I tried to make the splits yesterday, but got rained out. Not complaining about the rain for sure. We don't have church tonight so I made the splits this afternoon. I used the fly back split to make the 9 splits with to add the mated queens to. It worked great. I tore down a 4 deep hive and got 12 frames of brood. I had to tear down a double deep hive to get enough brood to make the remaining 3 nucs. I put 2 frames of honey or nectar in each of the 9 splits and still had a 10 frame deep to put back on the fly back split original hive. I don't know if that will effect them drawing comb or not. Our large main flow is over, but I think there's enough clover blooming that the fly back hive will be able to draw out those 10 frames of comb without any feeding. I'm wondering if they'll consume honey from overhead to use as energy to draw the comb. On the double deep that I tore down I put the 10 frames of honey on the bottom and 10 frames of comb above them. I'm thinking that they'll move the honey up and that will cause them to draw the comb above. I'll have to report back on that.


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## Dan the bee guy

Thanks Brad Bee what a great idea. I need to do a few splits this year and this should speed things up for me.


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