# Is there a way to have a split become a producer hive the first year?



## seawrath (May 30, 2015)

I made a bunch of splits mid april. Today they are just now having 4 full frames of capped brood with not much in the way of nectar. Just wondering if anyone pushes them for honey the first year. My 4 deep production hive just started working the top deep but it seems the flow is slowing down. I now have 8 colonies from swarms and splits from my 1 survivor hive, now in my second year with nothing but some finger licks of honey during inspection. And starting to get impatient.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

A buddy use to come down from Nebraska - and we would make him up 4/5 hundred 4 frame nucs - around the middle of march - install cells - get laying queens in them end of march.
haul them up and place them - then feed like crazy - then start transferring them to 10s - still feeding like 3 gallons per hive - now he had drawn comb to put them on - anyway - he makes 100/150 lbs per year with these 4 framers.
If there drawing foundation - that a whole other animal 
Next time - try to have a hive or 2 on honey production - others for splits/pulling foundation


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## seawrath (May 30, 2015)

I think march in kentucky is a bit colder than texas but i get the picture. Mid april was probably equivalent. Ill have to see if i can raise queens in march. But im guessing not.


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## sakhoney (Apr 3, 2016)

when you see the queen laying in the drone cells - its queen raising season - that's the way I time it - drones will hatch out before the queens - and she hangs around doing nothing for a week before mating flight - Anyway others may chime in here but it works for me


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## timduvall (Apr 11, 2014)

i made a 5 frame split early spring and fortunately, I had a couple boxes worth of drawn comb. I had to add a 5th box today. The 4th was full of nectar. I thought that was pretty good for only 2 months. I hived a small swarm a couple weeks ago into a 10 frame deep hive.... all foundation and they are trying to get going. I'm not sure if I'll get anything this fall or not. Unbelievable how quickly they can build up on drawn frames.


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## Harley Craig (Sep 18, 2012)

I have gotten honey off first yr splits, I make them up early and then beef them up with a few frames of capped brood from my strongest hives. This does two things, sets the stroger hive back just a tad but not as much as if they would swarm and it helps slow the swarm impulse by keeping wax maker busy. And two it gets the new colony up to speed quickly with already drawn comb and a bunch of extra nurse bees to snowball the growth rate. You may or may not catch the main flow but you ought to catch a fall flow if you have one.


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## jadebees (May 9, 2013)

All your hives will have some honey. Even if 5 lbs. You can easily do this: take the small hive's honey, and combine with a better hive. Do it early enough in autumn to build some stores, plus feed constantly all thru fall. If you have an extractor give the comb back to the combined. Getting rid of weaker hives, while producing larger ones by combining means good bees in spring. I do this with small or late swarms, and weak splits.


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