# Statistic pole for walk away splits



## wildbranch2007

depends


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## Steven Ogborn

One hive
One split,made 4th of July weekend.
They raised their own queen
They are still alive now. 2/15


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## beeherder

I got my first hives last August, so I haven't split yet, but they were 6 frame, 2 of honey and 4 of brood when I got them in august, and all 5 made it through the winter here, be it a short one, but they all did fine, and one of them was really weak going into winter.
I'll split when I see the brood chamber is getting too full. I hope to split at least a couple times this year. 
My bees did real well and 4 of the 5 hives are VSH stock, so they were worth the money here. Even the non VSH did well with no treatments other than feeding and honeybhealthy, but then they say it's the hives that arent' new that succumb to disease more often. More time to have introduced the disease into an older hive I suppose.
I plan to use the Mike Palmer video for splits/nucs as instructions for making a bunch of nucs this year. They say they fill em faster, so I wanna try that and see how successful I can be, as a first year beek. I'm wanting to get 'too many' bees so I can take some up north to my dads place and introduce the VSH genetics there.


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## Acebird

Steven Ogborn said:


> They are still alive now. 2/15


I assume with the drought in Texas you didn't harvest any honey.

So far no one has taken the poll. Is this a question no one has data on or even experience?


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## WWW

Ace, I intend to split in the spring ( my first ).....Bill


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## Tia

See my response to the thread, "If you don't raise your own queens, why not?" I use Walt Wright's nectar management after swarm cells are first produced in the spring and I make a split. It has always been successful up to this point (famous last words) and honey production has gone way up (second set of famous last words).


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## sqkcrk

Acebird said:


> I am looking for back yard apiaries that are small to see how small an apiary can be and still be successful with splits.


Why??


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## Capricorn

It helps to have another hive to pull a frame of eggs from if you need to. Beyond that I don't think it matters. I did a walk away split when I had one hive. One of them didn't make a new queen, so I just combined it back. Wasn't a huge deal.


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## Steven Ogborn

Acebird said:


> I assume with the drought in Texas you didn't harvest any honey.
> 
> Yeah, the drought made it a great year to start beekeeping. I didn't harvest on purpose. I had some honey combs collaped. (TBH)
> 
> So far no one has taken the poll. Is this a question no one has data on or even experience?


I thought I voted. Did it not register?

So, to reiterate. I have a TBH that I took a nuc out of July 4th weekend.
They raised their own queen. Now I have two hives as of Feb. 15th. It's too early to say that they've made it through
the winter yet. But, they're still alive now.


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## Steven Ogborn

Oops! I gotta figure out how to use that qouting thing.


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## snl

wildbranch2007 said:


> depends


Sorry, I don't wear them............


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## Joseph Clemens

Before I began raising cultured queens I only divided by using walk-away splits. If you start with only one hive, as I did, you soon have two, then four, etc. So, unless you want more control over the queens that head your colonies, walk-away splits are quite satisfactory.

About March 2011, after a record cold spell, I had about ten full-size hives and two nucs surviving. I started raising queens as soon as it warmed up and drones were visible, and, at the same time began making up mating nucs/regular nucs and giving them my cultured queen cells. I raised many queens and nucs, even though our flows were weaker than usual (I needed to start feeding more than usual), and ended the season with almost twenty full-size hives and nearly thirty nucs. A record for me. Many of my hives and nucs have maintained and continued to raise drones, so I've also been able to continue raising a few queens, all Winter long. We've had sporadic Winter rains, providing enough moisture that a Winter honey flow has just begun, so I'm using it to continue making additional increase, hoping to have max populations before the main honey flow arrives, around 15 April.

It can be done with one hive, but it is certainly easier with two or more hives, so that's what I voted for.


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## Solomon Parker

Last year, using walkaway splits, I multiplied two hives into seven.

You can't lose both hives in a walk away split any more than you can lose one hive in the same time period under the same conditions.


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## KQ6AR

If the basis to you're question is # of drones for the queen to mate with, number of hives doesn't mater.
You only need one hive, you're queen doesn't mate with you're drones anyway. She flies farther away to mate, than you're drones do.


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## Acebird

Steven Ogborn said:


> I thought I voted. Did it not register?


Oops, I am a dummy. It is the first time I did a poll so I thought the results were displayed at the top. Forgive me.


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## Acebird

Solomon Parker said:


> You can't lose both hives in a walk away split any more than you can lose one hive in the same time period under the same conditions.


Don't underestimate what I can do. I have been pretty successful and killing hives.

Mark, why what?

I have to say I am very surprised at the results of this poll so far. I thought the curve would be the exact opposite.


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## Daniel Y

In a literal since it only requires one hive to make a split. More hives will not increase the odds of that split being successful. I could have 1000 hives but my split will still be from only one of them. The chance this split or the hive has of being successful is exactly the same as if that one hive was the only one I own. My ability to tolerate the loss is effected by owning more than one hive.


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## fat/beeman

doing walk away splits is a no brainer. if you have say a 10 frame hive just reduce to a single and feed till they make queen cells. now only thing is weather need to be warm 75 plus and you have drones. now you could make as many as 9 splits.providing they made queen cells. you could just drop 1 frame in each nuc box or cut 1-2 cells to a frame of brood/honey. they will do there own thing.its just nature.
Don


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## tommyt

Daniel Y said:


> In a literal since it only requires one hive to make a split. More hives will not increase the odds of that split being successful. I could have 1000 hives but my split will still be from only one of them. The chance this split or the hive has of being successful is exactly the same as if that one hive was the only one I own. My ability to tolerate the loss is effected by owning more than one hive.


Thank you for typing my reply 

Tommyt


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## Acebird

Daniel Y said:


> My ability to tolerate the loss is effected by owning more than one hive.


Well that is why I was looking for a statical answer and I am somewhat surprised to get responses that you can't loose the parent hive when you split it in half. Doesn't splitting it in half weaken the hive or lower it's chances? This poll overwhelming favors one hive is all it takes to be successful but there are votes for 3 hives or more. I am wondering if those that voted for the third choice are thinking more statistically where you would be better assured that you would end up with more than you started with. But still the first choice is very popular.


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## sqkcrk

Acebird said:


> I am looking for back yard apiaries that are small to see how small an apiary can be and still be successful with splits.


Why? Why are you looking for back yard apiaries that are small to see how small an apiary can be and still be successful with splits?

Why are you doing this w/ a Poll? What can a Poll tell you?

What are you trying to find out? Are you trying to find out how many splits you can make from a single hive of bees? You can make a split w/ one frame of brood and bees. And it will survive and thrive if you handle it correctly.


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## Acebird

Well if I look at the pole right now 63 percent think that you will be successful with just owning one hive. I just came from a bee meeting where when I mentioned splits a woman jumped down my throat saying splits create inferior queens "they proved that in one of the bee magazines." Believe it or not I bit my tongue and didn't tell her she was full of crap.

Why did I poll? I feel more comfortable analyzing numbers then opinions even if the numbers are derived from opinions.

Are you asking why did I try to limit it to backyard beeks, beekeepers sorry? Because people like yourself with hundreds of hives are not going to do it wrong. I want to know what people like myself would have for a failure rate.


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## KQ6AR

There is a chance of getting an inferior queen, when bees raise emergency queens on older comb. Its more difficult for the bees to tear the sidewall of the cell, so a larva might not be swimming in royal jelly.
I've been happy with the ones my bees have raised, & haven't heard other people complain about theirs.


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## New Ky Beekeeper

Steven Ogborn said:


> One hive
> One split,made 4th of July weekend.
> They raised their own queen
> They are still alive now. 2/15


Considering the weather in your state last year, congratulations!! You give me faith.


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## New Ky Beekeeper

If my 12 remaining hives are still alive and healthy, I want to do a walk away split with each in late June.... (I will also consider the crazy KY weather). 

Phil


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## Acebird

KQ6AR said:


> There is a chance of getting an inferior queen, when bees raise emergency queens on older comb. Its more difficult for the bees to tear the sidewall of the cell, so a larva might not be swimming in royal jelly.


What if you stick in a new comb and do it for them? How about queen cups?


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