# Greetings



## Gwen Fairburn (Jul 11, 2015)

I am new to beekeeping


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Welcome Gwen!


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Hi Gwen,enjoy your bees!


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## bbruff22 (Dec 24, 2013)

Welcome from Kansas Gwen!


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## timgoodin (Mar 10, 2007)

Welcome, love the areas around Louisiana! (Spent 3 summers at LSU) 

Enjoy your new hobby, this is a great forum with some very helpful folks on here. 

Tim


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Welcome! Enjoy the source!


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## Gwen Fairburn (Jul 11, 2015)

I have 3 hives, checked the bees before we went to kentucky last week, yesterday went to check on the girls. I was devastated. My second hive was empty and i mean empty, no brood, no honey and dead bees. I think when we split the hive we took the queen, not really sure. No signs of disease or bugs. Dont really know what happened


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## Cloverdale (Mar 26, 2012)

Hi Gwen how did you do your split?


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## Gwen Fairburn (Jul 11, 2015)

He took a brood box off we had 2 and started new hive i think he took the queen


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## Gwen Fairburn (Jul 11, 2015)

I have never seen a queen yet but am anxious to see her. We thought the 2 nd box had a queen all the evidence was there it was doing great we thought. Really didnt know how to do a split, my thoughts were to take a few frames out and move to new box but the whole box was moved, i think this is where we went wrong


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## GaryG74 (Apr 9, 2014)

Welcome to BeeSource! Sorry the split didn't work. Was there any brood in the box you moved or was it all honey?
An easy way to make a split is to get a second bottom and top and set them next to the hive you're going to split. Put a new box on the new bottom and go through the original box like a deck of cards. One honey frame here, one there, one brood frame here, one there. Push the frames to the middle of both hives and fill the empty space on both sides with frames of foundation or drawn comb, put the new hive where you want it and check back in two-three days to see if the new hive has queen cells (if you didn't add a queen or queen cell). Do observations at the entrance to see if the bees are flying, foraging, etc. In about four weeks you should have a laying queen. In my experience, this method works pretty much every time.


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## Gwen Fairburn (Jul 11, 2015)

Thank you for the information. At the time the split was made I had no idea what any bee terminology, I called the brood box the bottom box, hive 1 and 2, i did know how to identify the worker bees and the drone cells, that was it. Ive only had about 3 months in the bee world but I am enjoying it. I honestly couldn't tell you what brood looked like. I know I have honey in my first hive, it is capped, have 3 supers on it right now, honey is light in color and tastes delicious.


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## Gwen Fairburn (Jul 11, 2015)

Well we harvested about 10 gallons of honey out of one hive. I was so excited. Lost one hive to the moth creatures, i was disappointed in that, but its ok will start again the new season. The other hive i have isnt doing well so i will be putting it up too , for my first year and really not sure what I'm doing i am pleased with the honey we did get, thank you all this site is very interesting and I am lerning every day:applause:


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## Joe Mel (Jul 31, 2015)

welcome to this forum friend.,


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