# Making Splits and looking for the Queen; Is there a better way?



## beekeeper032000 (Apr 25, 2009)

The way that I've made splits for years has been the traditional way, I guess, of first looking for the queen then making up the nuc splits. I'm trying to make up about 80 queenless nukes for queen cell introduction. With me and my helper we made up 37 queenless nucs just by opening a colony and looking for the queen first. This takes alot of time, and some times the queen is not easy to find, especially if the colony is getting ready to swarm. Does anybody have a good methode of making up splits on a large scale, and finding the queen? Anything to cut down the time. Thanks.
JG


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

JG, pull nuc above an excluder


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## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

Locate the frames you want to use in the nucs. Shake all bees off and place frames with foundation in place of those frames. Place the frames you want to use in the nucs in another box. Place an excluder between the bottom brood box and the new box with the frames you are going to use for the nucs.

In 2-3 hours the nurse bees will move up through the excluder to frames with the brood while the queen is forced to stay below.

The come through and remove frames with bees and make up the nucs.

Remove the excluder.


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## beekeeper032000 (Apr 25, 2009)

Hey thank you very much for sharring this,this will save me alot of time. I have over 100 colonies to go through, so I will try this method. Thanks again Jrbbess.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

And remember...you don't have to take everything for each nuc from only one hive. You can take brood from one or two hives, shake the bees off, and locate nuc on an excluder on another hive, taking only bees from that hive.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I use the same method as described above 

When I get behind or I am dealing with alot of bees I use a different method when making up splits , 
We will arrange the brood accordingly between the two boxes, and remove all the top boxes of the doubles to another yard
wait a few days, and queen anything that has emergency cells


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## jean-marc (Jan 13, 2005)

I have used bothmethods described by Ian. The first we use a lot, slower but you can take just the right amount, without weakening the hive too much. The second is good in that once the singles are on the ground you are more or less done. you will need to check for eggs/cells but unlike the nuc you will not need to switch the frames from into a single. 

Fr hives that are about to swarm, do notbother with finding the queen. Just explode it into ,4 or 5 frame units. They will no longer have the urge to swarm. You can find the old queen 3 days later.

Jean-Marc


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## beekeeper032000 (Apr 25, 2009)

Hey thanks Ian, I will be using this method. It sounds pretty good. Some of my hives are gearing up for swarming, and I just don't have the time to go through all my hives frame by frame looking for the queen. Im raising several hundred queens so I need to make up queenless nucs to put in the queen cells, ASAP. The bees don't wait for us to get around, everything happens at once. Thanks again, and may you have a great year.

Jim.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

If you have at least 5 days ahead you can slip your excluder between the boxes and then look for where the eggs are at when you split them. Sometimes it's just as important to know where she isn't as it is to know where she is.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Jim , I have tried that, but the biggest disadvantage is that it ties you to a very strict schedule, throw weather into the mix, it doesn't work


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Ian: I have done it a few times and it's kind of nice information to have as you are splitting a hive but we have never worked it into our operation for a number of reasons the biggest one being that planning 5 days ahead during nucing season is next to an impossibility for me with everything else that is going on at the same time. Frankly what we do is to spend the time finding the queens. I know that's not what the op was asking for but 40 doubles a day is pretty doable once you get the hang of it. The easiest thing is simply to not look for anything and either look for cells in a couple days as Ian suggests or simply put a cell in everything. I have tried shaking them down below an excluder but it creates too much turmoil in the yard to suit me.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

jim lyon said:


> I have tried shaking them down below an excluder but it creates too much turmoil in the yard to suit me.


Bee-Go works


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## dback (Jan 8, 2012)

I'm with Jim........don't like the "turmoil". Most often we just make the splits and 'cell' everything. If we are using mated queens.....we make the splits, wait 72 hours and go back and look for cells or no eggs and give them a queen. I know a very large commercial that 'cells' everything with a "cell protector" now. A smaller guy I know has a unique variation......say hive #1 he splits into 5 supers stacked on top of each other. He then writes a #1 on each of the five supers....comes back at night, places each of the five supers on a pallet and moves them. 72 hours later he starts looking for eggs......if there are no eggs then he places a cell in it. If by chance the second hive of the #1 has the queen he doesn't need to check any more of the #1 but simply place a cell in them. Don't know if that made sense or not but it does save him time.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

jim lyon said:


> I know that's not what the op was asking for but 40 doubles a day is pretty doable once you get the hang of it.


ya, thats what I do to when making up my nucs

Lots of ideas out there, not all will work for everyone preferences, 
but with everyone chiming in on the issue, sure helps make sense of it all


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## Sadler91 (Nov 6, 2011)

I know this is going away from the topic a little, but how many of yall use cells to queen your singles? I have tossed around the idea of using more cells this year than mated and was wondering how well your percent take is in the singles?


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## beekeeper032000 (Apr 25, 2009)

I do use cells when I re-queen as well as mated queens. The desadvantages of using the cells is that the weather may prevent her from recieving good matings, (rainy, cold, ect.), or during her mating flight, she can be snatched up my an insect eating birds. When I raise queen and put in my queen cells, on a good, perfect day, I may get 80% succes.


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## dback (Jan 8, 2012)

I like 80%.....anything over that we do a "Dances with Wolves" thing around the smoker, anything under I kick the dirt and cuss.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

I quit looking for queens when doing splits.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslazy.htm#splitbybox


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## Sadler91 (Nov 6, 2011)

Thanks for the info. I normally use cells for making nucs and I scatter them out every which way. Take is about the same. Guess it dont really matter how you do it.


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## chillardbee (May 26, 2005)

I look for the queen as I'm making up the nuc and I'm comfortable enough that if I don't see her on a frame inside of 30 seconds that she is not on it. quite often I'll find her as I'm making up the nuc and I just set her aside. The time of year also helps, it's easier to find a queen in the spring then in mid summer during a flow. My worst is that I grabed 2% of the queens but most often I grab none. It takes about 5-7 minutes to make a nuc like that from the opening the hive to putting the lid on your hive and nuc. 

If you have a partner out there with you you can double check the the frames. When my dad and I made nucs I would open the hive and as I came across the frames for the nuc I would give it a quick check 15-20 seconds then pass it to my dad who would check it until I passed him the next frame. When the nuc was made he'd close everything up while I moved onto the next hive.


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## Sadler91 (Nov 6, 2011)

chillardbee said:


> I look for the queen as I'm making up the nuc and I'm comfortable enough that if I don't see her on a frame inside of 30 seconds that she is not on it. quite often I'll find her as I'm making up the nuc and I just set her aside. The time of year also helps, it's easier to find a queen in the spring then in mid summer during a flow. My worst is that I grabed 2% of the queens but most often I grab none. It takes about 5-7 minutes to make a nuc like that from the opening the hive to putting the lid on your hive and nuc.
> 
> If you have a partner out there with you you can double check the the frames. *When my dad and I made nucs I would open the hive and as I came across the frames for the nuc I would give it a quick check 15-20 seconds then pass it to my dad who would check it until I passed him the next frame. When the nuc was made he'd close everything up while I moved onto the next hive.*




My entire childhood


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

You could just not worry about the queen. Break the hive into nucs, cell all of them. On your first inspection the nuc with the queen will be obviously stronger. Besides, there is a fair chance you will spot her without even trying.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

Michael Palmer said:


> Bee-Go works


Not on cool days when splitting happens.


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## Beeslave (Feb 6, 2009)

If you sprinkle some bee-go on your smoker fuel ....then smoke the bees they will move through the excluder.....even during cooler weather.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Now that I went to eight frame mediums, I split them by the box and don't look for anything other than four 8 frame medium boxes full of bees. The queen is wherever she is and the part that is queenless will raise one. I can split a yard in an hour or two, depending on the size of the yard. If I'm wanting to introduce queens, I do it as cells, in all of them. The queenlesss ones will usually accept the queen, and the queen right ones usually get superseded.

But assuming you don't want the queen in it, (so you can introduce queens) I think shaking them all off (or blowing them all off) and putting the frames above an excluder is your best bet.


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## BMAC (Jun 23, 2009)

Beeslave said:


> If you sprinkle some bee-go on your smoker fuel ....then smoke the bees they will move through the excluder.....even during cooler weather.


Interesting. Not sure I want to try it but interesting. That stuff is nasty when its not on fire.


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## Johnny (Sep 7, 2007)

I like to crack the hive and check for brood in top and bottom box without pulling any frames. If both boxes have brood top box goes on a new pallet put lids on and move on to the next. Next day or two I'll add cells to all of them add a box with drawn comb and foundation and give them light syrup. 10-15 days later I'll check for eggs and add mated queens if the hive is queenless. This has worked out good for my little operation. I prefer to do my splits day after I get them home from almond, that way all my new splits can stay in the same yard. 
John


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## ganni025 (Sep 4, 2009)

I am a hobbyist bee keeper and I come from Malta (I know you're going to say where the hack is Malta but it's a small island beneath Sicily in the middle of the Mediterranean). 

My question is, I have a hive and I know that the queen is old I know that she's in there but not laying much. I was thinking to replace her but couldn't find her. If I insert a queen cage with a virgin queen cell inside instead of buying a new queen and I leave it for 4 days with the cage facing down would the old queen be on the cage netting trying to kill the new queen which is yet to emerge (or already emerged in the incubator). I was thinking on hatching a queen cell in an incubator since I never managed to find the queen and to use it as bait to find the old queen.

would it be possible to tell me the correct procedure please or some information please. from inserting the queen cell in the incubator till installation please.

thanks and regard
JPG


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