# Splits with a chilly weekend coming up? To wait or to act?



## karenarnett (Mar 25, 2012)

Was planning to split up a mean hive and we've had a week of warm weather, but suddenly the forecast calls for a cold snap this weekend with lows in the mid-40s and highs in the 50s. Just for a couple of days. Does it make sense to split now or wait until the warm weather resumes? Every time I've trusted the wx forecast this season so far, it's been wrong. Hate to chill small boxes of bees.


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## JohnSchwartz (Mar 24, 2014)

I'm in Cleveland. I think you're fine to split this weekend. Sunday looks like a nicer day hitting around 57.


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## Matt_inSC (May 12, 2015)

If you have a/some Snelgrove (also called double screen) boards you could do vertical splits. I did the same (split a hive) and then saw some cold nights coming so moved that split to the top side of a Snelgrove over another hive. The split colony came through just fine.


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## leemann (Apr 17, 2017)

karenarnett said:


> Was planning to split up a mean hive and we've had a week of warm weather, but suddenly the forecast calls for a cold snap this weekend with lows in the mid-40s and highs in the 50s. Just for a couple of days. Does it make sense to split now or wait until the warm weather resumes? Every time I've trusted the wx forecast this season so far, it's been wrong. Hate to chill small boxes of bees.


Question from a first year beekeeper (or first spring) from Ontario Canada about an 1 1/2 hour north or your area. I was thinking of doing splits too but seeing the weather. Are you doing a walk away split? Are you seeing drones down there?


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## loghousebees (Jun 13, 2014)

There are plenty of drones in this area. I think your big question is, are the nights going to be so cool that you have to worry about chilled brood and do you have enough nurse bees in the split to cover that brood?


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## Ravenseye (Apr 2, 2006)

loghousebees said:


> There are plenty of drones in this area. I think your big question is, are the nights going to be so cool that you have to worry about chilled brood and do you have enough nurse bees in the split to cover that brood?


Good post. I'd worry about covering brood. It's NOT the end of the world to lose brood but if you can avoid it, why not. If you're splitting as swarm prevention though you might have to buck up and get it done.


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## Skinny bee man (Dec 22, 2013)

leemann said:


> Question from a first year beekeeper (or first spring) from Ontario Canada about an 1 1/2 hour north or your area. I was thinking of doing splits too but seeing the weather. Are you doing a walk away split? Are you seeing drones down there?


I would hold off a couple weeks. Still cool and you need some drones. Located near Peterborough.
Around May 4/5 is usually fine if the weather is good.


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## karenarnett (Mar 25, 2012)

Thanks for all the input. We've had drones flying here for two -three weeks now. That particular hive was packed with drones not long ago (not completely drone). It's a very populous hive and very aggressive and I live in an urban/suburban area, so in the interest of safety I split the hive into two as prep to move the hive to another yard (only because I didn't want to try and pull out frames with eggs for a four way split (a la Michael Bush's recommendations for dealing with overly hot hive.) This hive is mean! I will leave them side by side for the weekend, with the cool weather and rain we're going to have they'll be stuck in the hive and not a threat to my neighbors, and then I'll move both hives to another beeyard and try to requeen when I can get hold of some queen cells. For now both halves are quite crowded so I think they'll do fine through this upcoming cold snap. I did see two capped supercedure cells when going through the hive, and am now just concerned not to damage the developing queen pupae by moving them in a truck to a different yard. So maybe they'll sit where they are for the meantime. Perhaps they are mean because they're trying to supercede - laying pattern is not very solid, and that might explain the high number of drones early on.


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## nediver (May 26, 2013)

Ravenseye said:


> Good post. I'd worry about covering brood. It's NOT the end of the world to lose brood but if you can avoid it, why not. If you're splitting as swarm prevention though you might have to buck up and get it done.


I did just this recently. After I realized I put them in a screened bottom Nuc. Hope not too chilly but ''tis what it is since I haven't time to fix at the moment.


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