# Splitting?



## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

If my hives are good, I am going to take of the top brood box, put a grafted a queen cell, and place it far away from the old hive. (I have 2 boxes in one hive). Can I make 3 more splits from each of these hives and split in August if I introduce a queen.Will this weaken them too much. I have 20 hives and I want around a 120 hives for next years blueberry pollination. :s:s:s:s. Is this too much!!!


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## EastSideBuzz (Apr 12, 2009)

20 to 120 without packages is a bit ambitious IMHO.


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## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

Ya I figured, I'll probably just go to 50


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Splitting is an art. I would take each hive as it's own decisions and play it by ear.

Better to make strong splits that build up quickly and then split again, than too many weak splits. No need to move them elsewhere.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm


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## throrope (Dec 18, 2008)

2X on Michael. Just don't be afraid to make mistakes.


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## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

THanks Michael, I love your website answer its full of usefull information.


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## rweakley (Jul 2, 2004)

Why not take resources from multiple hives and make a super NUC, tons of bees great population, open honey and pollen, and make some queens either through simply overpopulating and cause swarm instinct or by using a cell bar and waxing some appropriate aged larva to it and make hopefully a bunch of queens with fewer resources, then when they are capped put one or two whatever queen cells in nucs you make up from again resources from your other hives. Seems to me the most resource intensive part of splits is getting good queens, if you are feeding a few of your hives during the almost 2 weeks that the SUPER NUC is making your queens they should be bursting with resources to fill mating/split nucs. Anyway, just something I have been thinking about and experimenting with a little here lately.

Rod


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## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

That was my initial idea but then I was worried that the new queen won't have enough drones to mate with and that she will probably die over winter. THat was the reason I wanted to buy the queens.


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## concrete-bees (Jun 20, 2009)

lets put the bees out of the picture for a moment 

20 hives will mean you have 20 bottoms, 20 tops , 40 deeps, and if you have min 2 supers per hive ... that gives you 40 supers 

for 120 hives you will need 120 tops, 120 bottoms - or 30 pallets, you will need about 240 more deeps and 2400 frames and about 400 supers and 4000 frames to fill them 

so ........ you will need a chunk of change just to make that happen ... i know i did it 

best best is to find active hives for sale and go that direction 

oh i forgot about the feed ...... oh the feed ... you will have to feed during the blueberry crop ( some years you dont but most you do) figure on 5 gallons of feed per hive 

thats my reality check on the splitting 

or if you what to pollinate blueberries ... might consider being a broker and rent out other small beekeepers hives and take a percent of the money as a broker


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## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

I am going o pollinate my own crop. Is it cheap if a guy is selling me a one deep hive for $175. Thanks for the response!


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

I went from 2 hives to 10 in 2010 - the equivalent of strong single deeps by winter. But concrete bees is right - that is a big, fast investment in equipment. There's also this - can you manage that many hives? I doubt if I could.


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## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

I guess so, I'll probably just do a few splits this year and have the a few hives for honey, and if it goes well I'll do more next year.


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## johnblagg (May 15, 2011)

I went from one swarm to 3 strong hives last year and those three are now split into 6 strong hives this spring I could if I want split once more with out feeding too much but the third split takes you into the dearth and means feeding massive amounts to get them through that ...I can see you getting up to 60 from 20 but not much more and I would try for 40 and keep them strong and let them fill up with stores for winter.
I have to agree with Mr Bush every split is a bit different I had a few that just refused to take last year and recombined them and a week or so later tryed again and no problem at all


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## pannu96 (Mar 7, 2012)

I'd probably go for 40 now, and then I may also get some honey too. I don't want to kill any of my weak hives through winter so I'll go on the safe side and let them build up back to two deeps.


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