# Nurse bees and a cut down split



## crofter (May 5, 2011)

It certainly would on the whole, make more honey than if they swarmed. The effect would be similar to a Snelgrove split. He claimed it did not appreciably cut honey production but dont remember him saying it produced more.


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## Island Bees (Dec 22, 2021)

crofter said:


> It certainly would on the whole, make more honey than if they swarmed. The effect would be similar to a Snelgrove split. He claimed it did not appreciably cut honey production but dont remember him saying it produced more.


Hi, The cutdown split procedure Im talking about is used mostly for producing an intense flow for comb honey production and involves taking most of the uncapped brood and the queen from the hive. I just dont understand why I would take the existing uncapped brood rather than taking the queen away 10 days before the main flow starts. That would produce a broodless period which means it would be a varroa control as well as forcing the hive to focus entirely on nectar collection.


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Island Bees said:


> Its generally accepted that cut down splits bring in more honey


It does seem to be a line written about a lot online. My experience differs greatly.

Second year we had bee, did a cut down on one colony because they had swam cells. they made way more honey than our other colony. We immediately determined we knew the secret to honey production, just do a cut down on all the colonies. the following couple of years, that's what we did. Honey crops were average to below average comparing with neighbors. I stopped doing the cut down intending to get more honey, but, continued to use it as a method of swarm control on colonies that were showing swarm preps earlier than we were ready for splits. After doing that for a number of seasons, my conclusion is, the cut down does not help honey production unless it's absolutely perfectly timed. Do it 10 days to 2 weeks before a heavy flow and you will get a good batch of honey. Do it any earlier, or later, you dont.

I've had many examples of a situation where a colony that was subject to the cut-down made a box of honey, while the colony next to it on the same stand, not subject to a cut-down, made 3 boxes over the same flow period. Your mileage may vary,


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## JoshuaW (Feb 2, 2015)

I would like to ditto grozzie's experience.

The hives that are stable (queenright, allowed to make drones, have a forager force, room for the queen to lay, etc), have better morale and make more honey. 
Young queens have done more for my honey production than anything.
Extreme manipulations that potentially throw the colony out of balance take a while for the colony to re-group. Around here, by the time that happens, the hive so treated doesn't usually catch back up.
Strong flows help a lot. We don't really have them around here (western WV), but we do have warmer weather earlier than eastern WV, so it's great for raising queens and making nucs.


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## thill (Nov 30, 2020)

For me, when I did splits last year, production seemed to stop while they were focused on making a new queen.
Hopefully, I can give them lots of space, inspect often and prevent swarming this year, and get a good honey crop.


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