# Trying to pull frames for splits, and it all went wrong



## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

Thanks for posting! Can't help with your situation but I want to keep track of the responses.


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## TxGypsy (Mar 17, 2012)

After dealing with a few monster sized aggressive hives I have come up with an unorthodox method. I get a tote with some soapy water in it and shake bees into the soapy water. Not all of them, just enough to lessen the population a bit. Yes, I am mostly getting nurse bees rather than field workers. If the hive is really cranky I close up the entrance and let the field workers accumulate on the front of the hive before giving them a soapy bath as well. Once the population has been decreased a bit they are generally easier to deal with.....in a few days. Of course brood comb can also be frozen if you want to prevent as many more aggressive bees as possible from being born.

It is easier to find the queen and dispose of her before requeening with the population reduced as well.

Edited to add: I'm glad that I responded to your question. The act of writing out my response made me re-think how I handle this situation. I currently have a hot hive that needs this treatment and frankly I've been putting it off. I'm going to do it a bit differently this time. All my hives are on screened bottom boards, so closing the entrance for a bit won't hurt the hive. When the bees are flying strongly I am going to close the entrance and let the bees accumulate on the front of the hive and give them a 'bath'. After a couple of times doing this, it should greatly reduce the population of the hive. The hope is that I would be left with mostly the gentler nurse bees in the hive.

Then I will go into the hive and find and kill the old queen. At that time I will also remove any uncapped brood and put it in the freezer. That will give me a hopelessly queenless hive populated by mostly nurse bees and emerging brood. Then the next day I will introduce the new queen. By removing all the open brood hopefully that will mean it won't take as long to change over the temperament of the hive. I will make sure there are several frames of open comb for the new queen to lay in.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

It is better have open brood in the bottom box below the excluder. All of the foraging bees will fly when you shake the frames. That's fine. A lot of bees will climb up the sides of the box. That's fine. The queen will be looking for a way through the excluder so keep looking there. I haven't done this much but it's always worked.


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## FlowerPlanter (Aug 3, 2011)

First your in AHB territory, so you have to keep that in mind. There are tricks to requeening AHB bees, it can be hard to get them to accept a EHB queen. You need to research that before proceeding. 

Do you have eggs? And young larva? Any capped queen cells?
If you have eggs and no capped q cells she is still there. (look for her again, on the brood)
If you have no eggs or young larva and capped q cells she is most likely gone.

I would divide your hive into 3 like you were planning, destroy all q cells, also check queen cups with eggs too. Look for the queen as you go. Give them few hours/day to realize they are queenless. Introduce new queens in each box. At least two of the nucs will be queenless and hopefully accept the new queen. Your old queen may have left, if not she will most likely kill the introduces queen then swarm. The hives that did not accept the queen may make queen cell with left over eggs/larva if they have them. Check in 10 days (it can take 2 for purchased queens for to start laying) and find out which one is queenless that one may also have capped q cells. Split frames/bees and between the other two nucs.

If they all go queenless they did not accept the queens possible AHB. Recombine them all, destroy any q cells. add a frame of brood/eggs and see what they do with it. 

Here's another idea that might also work. Move your hive 20+ feet away. Put a empty nuc/hive in the old location, shake the frames one at a time move them to the empty nuc (look for the queen as you go/destroy q cells). Make your nuc to the size you want, move to a new location, lean a bottom board over the entrance to force them to reoriented. Make all 3 nucs this way, hopefully you find the queen as you shake and she does not fly to one of the nucs. (if she could fly she should have swarmed) Give the nucs a few hours/day to settle down and realize they are queenless then introduce the new queens.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

No AHB around these parts. They're hot, but they're not THAT hot. There were some fresh eggs, and 30 - 40 UNcapped queen cells with well fed larvae and at least 30 queen cups with no eggs or larvae. After all that ordeal I STILL did not find the queen. If she was unable to get through the excluder she is still in the main hive. I removed all the frames above the excluder and placed them in nucs. I removed 7 frames of bees and larvae for 3 splits and the hive was still packed with bees. I moved the 3 nucs to the other side of the farm and plan on putting queens in them this afternoon. If one of the nucs isn't "roaring" I will check it for the queen. Since the hive is so strong, I may pull another split or two from the hive this afternoon and use queen cells from my best queen and put them in next week. If my bee math is correct I should be able to cut any queen cells started by Monday or Tuesday at the latest and leave them nothing to make a queen with. They should readily accept a QC the next day.


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## MTN-Bees (Jan 27, 2014)

Some of the bigger hives I've even gone as far as dividing the hive equally into three with two QEs. Then let it sit for about 3-5 days. After that I have been able to locate the queen. And the QE kept her seperated. You do need to go in and remove the queen cells. I have some that even after splits still insist on developing swarm cells. If thats the case place the old queen in a nuc or pinch her. I don't have to deal with AHB yet, so I can't help with that. Yes gloves are almost a must as the bees become very pissed.


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## Brad Bee (Apr 15, 2013)

I think the QE trick worked, although I doubt I ever try it exactly this same way again. 

I split the hive around lunch and got in from the shop around 6:30. I took the 3 caged queens to the splits and placed them on top of the frames in the 3 splits. All 3 splits reacted immediately to the caged queens. They started crawling on the cages and fanning. They did not appear to show any aggression towards the queen. Just to be safe I left the bottom little door on the queen cages closed. These are plastic queen cages they don't have corks in them. I checked each frame again to see if they had started any queen cells, and one split had either started one since lunch or I missed it when I split them. I won't have time to do any more splitting until Saturday but I think I'm going to split the donor hive all the way down. I will pinch the queen as soon as I find her.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Brad Bee said:


> I think the QE trick worked, although I doubt I ever try it exactly this same way again.


Don't you just hate it when things don't go the way they are said it should go?

If I were in your shoes and was faced with this problem I would have made three splits with the queens you got from hives that were calm. Then when the splits were strong enough or if you had other hives strong enough I would have just shaken the bees in front of the hives on a board so the nurse bees could crawl into the hives. All the flying bees would have to beg their way into a hive of their choice. The queen, if she was still present would be outside her hive and in front of another. Nature would take care of your problem. You would not have to look for her. Make sure you destroyed all the queen cells on the frames and redistribute to other hives.


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## Ross (Apr 30, 2003)

Divide and conquer almost always works on these kinds of hives. Read Michael Bush's page on it.


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