# Splits- leave queen home or move to new hive?



## ShannaRose (Feb 10, 2015)

When making a split in a top bar hive, does it matter which way it is done?:
1. Find the queen and move her, along with several combs of brood, some honey and pollen and extra bees- and put an excluder over the entrance for a few days
OR
2. Find the queen, leave her in the hive, and establish new hive with a few combs that have fully developed and capped queen cells, honey, extra bees (same as above)

Leave the queen at home, or move her to a new hive? Will the new hive with only queen cells and bees have less of a chance of succeeding if moved away? How long should I give them before I check back to see if they raised a queen? How long do I wait before I give them more brood and another chance to raise a queen if the first time failed? What will make the bees stick around and keep trying to raise a queen- the pheremones in the brood? When is it a good idea to order a new queen? I can have one shipped from a reputable source on the other side of the island in 2 days?

Had an old-timer (who's not very old!) bee-keeper help me today and we left the queen at home when we did the split. My mentor does it the other way. 
Just wondering...


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## Sovek (Apr 27, 2014)

ShannaRose said:


> When making a split in a top bar hive, does it matter which way it is done?:
> 1. Find the queen and move her, along with several combs of brood, some honey and pollen and extra bees- and put an excluder over the entrance for a few days
> OR
> 2. Find the queen, leave her in the hive, and establish new hive with a few combs that have fully developed and capped queen cells, honey, extra bees (same as above)
> ...


When I did my split I took the queen and left the QCs in the original hive. I think either way works as long as you give the queen some space.


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## jfmcree (Mar 10, 2014)

I usually try not to take the queen to a new location only because of concern about her dropping out along the way somewhere or injury in the process. The only impact I can think of is the parent or split hive might have less drawn comb for a present queen to lay in while a future queen coming from egg development will not be laying for about 4 weeks and that gives the bees time to make new comb and gather pollen/nectar. Be sure to include sufficient bees, pollen and nectar/honey in both colonies to support the queen and queen development activities.

I've done it both ways with the queen ending up in the split accidentally. It seems to work out fine. I haven't dropped her out yet!


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

I always move the queen. If the idea is that you're breaking up the swarm impulse (if you're splitting because you see queen cells), then it stands to reason that the better chance of making them think they've swarmed is to take a bunch of bees and the old queen. Or if you're splitting just to make increase, the forage force will remain almost entirely with the old section of the hive. The old section arguably needs more force to recover from the split. Where as the queenright section will have a laying queen the entire time.

I have a split that I did the very beginning of June. I gave them the original queen, three frames of brood and two frames of uncapped honey. I opened the hive yesterday, they haven't fully drawn out the entire deep, yet, but they're close. And bees covering the top bars from side-to-side and end-to-end while the original hive doesn't quite have a mated queen yet.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>1. Find the queen and move her, along with several combs of brood, some honey and pollen and extra bees- and put an excluder over the entrance for a few days
OR
>2. Find the queen, leave her in the hive, and establish new hive with a few combs that have fully developed and capped queen cells, honey, extra bees (same as above)

How about don't bother to find the queen and just do the split. But if you do find her I would put her in the new location. The new location will lose a lot of foragers. No point setting them back with no queen as well.

>How long should I give them before I check back to see if they raised a queen? 

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

>How long do I wait before I give them more brood and another chance to raise a queen if the first time failed? 

Anytime will work. A couple of weeks is probably a good plan.

>What will make the bees stick around and keep trying to raise a queen- the pheremones in the brood?

Open brood will anchor some of the bees (the nurse bees) but the foragers will go back to the original hive.

> When is it a good idea to order a new queen?

I would not. I would give them some open brood to raise a new queen if I thought they were hopelessly queenless.


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## EvanS (Feb 27, 2015)

Michael Bush said:


> >1. Find the queen and move her, along with several combs of brood, some honey and pollen and extra bees- and put an excluder over the entrance for a few days
> OR
> >2. Find the queen, leave her in the hive, and establish new hive with a few combs that have fully developed and capped queen cells, honey, extra bees (same as above)
> 
> ...


This was my situation when I did my first split a few weeks ago. I made sure there were a few queen cells in each hive. The foragers I moved went back to the original hive and the nurse bees stayed. Now I have all brood cells open and many more bees who have been filling the brood cells with nectar. Going to do another inspection today to see if they are starting to build new comb and cap brood. I didn't see the queen last inspection, but there was a queen cell open, so I hope I just missed her or she was on a mating flight. Unfortunately, my hive still swarmed because I didn't realize they needed more room than they had until I saw the queen cells and I didn't move my follower board in time.


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## Number6 (Jun 21, 2015)

This is just what I am looking for! I need to split my TBH as it seems to be getting quite full! I'm new to bee keeping and very apprehensive about this split, although I know I need to split and soon! I've been watching a lot of Mr Bush's video's on youtube as well others, which may have added to my apprehension. One question I have is,, I live in bear country, my TBH is in a area surrounded by an electric fence, a bear recently attempted to get in breaking the top two strands, so I need to place the second hive in the same area. It's about 12x12. Also, I'm pretty much on my own here, is there a site that posts pics of brood comb, nectar combs, pollen combs, nurse and forager bees? Yup, lots to learn, I'll be a regular around here for a while. Thanks for all your help. Hank


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

One of the most important things if you are doing walk away splits is to have realistic expectations on timing. It may only take 12 days for a queen to emerge but it typically takes another two weeks or so for her to be laying. 24 days +- 5 is a good expectation. It could take as long as 33 days from the split to have a laying queen on the outside. After that you are out of luck. Don't give up too soon... don't refuse to give up when it's too late...


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## EvanS (Feb 27, 2015)

Nurse and forager bees are the same. Just at different ages. The only way I knew the bees that stayed were nurse bees is because they did stay and were working the brood comb. You can look up photos online of the different types of comb. Brood is capped in yellow, and honey is capped in white. The brood comb should also have some capped honey at the top.


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## Number6 (Jun 21, 2015)

OK, can I put the newly split hive next to the donor hive?


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## EvanS (Feb 27, 2015)

That's what I did and they seem fine. I just came in from checking them and after three weeks they are finally drawing new comb. My split was a little more involved since I split them into a foundationless lang. I had to cut comb from the bars and rubber band them into frames. If you are splitting into another tbh it will be much easier.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>OK, can I put the newly split hive next to the donor hive?

Just take into account that the field bees will go back to the original hive. Either accept that, or shake in extra bees in the new location to make up for it, or move the old hive over a little and set them so their entrances split the difference between the new and old hives...


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## ShannaRose (Feb 10, 2015)

sorry, I'm newbee, but I didn't understand your sentence
"move the old hive over a little and set them so their entrances split the difference between the new and old hives..." Split the difference of what? Definitely I lost my foragers with the split I did, they just flew back to the original hive. I'm wondering since I didn't move the queen whether she will just get that swarm urge again very soon. If I'd have moved her I'd have had a good 3 months. I'm beginning to see why most often moving the queen makes the most sense. At least then the original hive will get the foragers back even though they have no queen, so that their numbers stay high and they can defend against the shb's....

Well the deed's been done and I'm curious to just see if the new queenless hive will make a new queen- before the small hive beetles find them. Hawaii is such a fertile lush place everything seems to propagate like crazy especially in summer! My bees are the same way...


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Switch hive locations tomorrow. Queen right loses most of her forages and new hive gets a boost of bees. I really think you need to take the queen, but that's just me. I took the queen in one this year and she still swarmed. It's not fool proof.


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## ShannaRose (Feb 10, 2015)

another friend suggested switching the hives around- just gotta have 2 strong and unafraid of bees guys here at once to do the heavy work... I was encouraged when I peeked in today to the queenless hive- some of the capped brood must've hatched and there were a good amount of bees- we'd put 3 combs of capped brood in. Next time I will definitely take the queen. The queen-rite hive has that swarmy feel still... so much to learn, and leaving in a week- so I'll miss all the excitement of the new queen emerging. Luckily my mentor is caring for my girls while I'm away. I feel like I'm leaving my kids! they are harder to leave than my cats! Hoping to find some bees needing care on my travels in CA and OR so I can get my fix. I think I'm addicted....!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>sorry, I'm newbee, but I didn't understand your sentence "move the old hive over a little and set them so their entrances split the difference between the new and old hives..." Split the difference of what?

Split the difference of the distance to the old location. If the returning bees find nothing at the old location, and a hive just to the right and just to the left equidistant from the old location then they have to choose. Rather than all the bees going back to the old location some will choose one and some will choose the other because nothing is exactly at the old location.


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## ShannaRose (Feb 10, 2015)

Ah, now I get it, thanks for that explanation- makes tons of sense!


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## Number6 (Jun 21, 2015)

Well, my bee's were tried of waiting and they swarmed! Fortunately they ended up in my apple tree. I was able to capture most of them, I shook them into my new hive which I set next to the original hive. So far the bee's seem to be using both hives! Today I will go into the first hive and look for queen cells, I also plan on moving some brood comb and honey comb into the new hive. I hope I'm doing this right? I do seem to have quite a few drones in the older hive, but from what I've read here it should be OK?


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## Number6 (Jun 21, 2015)

it's been 3 weeks since the bee's swarmed, the new hive is very active as well as the donor hive. I inspected both last week and found 4 queen cells. 2 on the side of one comb and 2 on the lower third of another comb. I transferred 2 brood combs to the new hive, cut one of the queen cells off the donor comb and placed it in the new hive. I did not find the queen when inspecting, but did not pull the bars located at the entrance, I guess I was a bit intimidated,. Looking through the windows in both hives everything seems to be doing fine. Should I plunge ahead and look for the queens, or should I let them do their thing and leave them alone for another week or so? There is a lot of activity at both hives, as I said there only about 6ft apart! I'am also looking for advice on the best way to harvest honey from my tbh's? Thanks!


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## Cub Creek Bees (Feb 16, 2015)

Let your new queen do her thing 'til she's settled in and laying. JMO, and I'm a newbie.
The best way to harvest honey from a topbar is to take it out of the hive.


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