# Fume board Split



## blamb61 (Apr 24, 2014)

I will put the old hive boxes on a new hive one at a time and drive all the bees out of the old hive bodies and into the new hive using the fume board. I will re-assemble the old hive in the old place. The new hive will have the old queen and the nurse bees. The old hive will have all the fly-backs and the capped and open brood to raise a new queen. snved, did you try your suggested method? Anyone see a problem with this? Only thing I saw above is the concern of this being harsh on brood. I plan on using the almond scented stuff and not the horrible smelling stuff. There will be 3-4 mediums that make up the new hive for the bees to escape to when fuming them out of the old hive box. I will cover the bottom entrance while doing this (have screened bottom boards).


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## blamb61 (Apr 24, 2014)

I am also going to try to do a two queen hive this way. I have an all medium box hive. I would remove all but two boxes (5-box hive total including supers). Then I would put removed boxes back on one at a time and drive bees out of it to the bottom two boxes using a fume board and set the empty box aside. Once all the bees are all in the two bottom boxes, I will put a separation board on and then put the rest of the boxes back on and if there any queen cells forming, I will put them in the top box or move some new eggs up to the top to get them to develop a new queen. I would give the upper boxes a top entrance. After a month or little longer, I would replace the divider board with a queen excluder and newspaper to combine them. Early fall, I would remove the excluder and let the queens duke it out. Any thoughts? Would it still work if instead of using a divider board just start with an excluder? Would that cause a new queen up top to find the queen below and kill her or would I get a two queen hive? That would be less steps if that would work. Can I successfully drive all bees into two med hive bodies? Any thoughts would be appreciated. If this works, I would have a two queen hive and be practicing queen replacement and hopefully swarm control. Could loose both queens when they duke it out.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Have you ever considered use of the Snelgrove division board? Are you familiar with the Taranov manouver? 

I have no experience with fume boards but I don't find the idea appealing.


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## blamb61 (Apr 24, 2014)

I've watched videos of the Taranov manouver. That is what gave me the idea for this. You end up in in the same configuration from what I've watched. I'm horrible at finding queens and I wouldn't need to pull frames to do this.


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## fieldsofnaturalhoney (Feb 29, 2012)

3-4 boxes to escape to? How many boxes are you running them out of? Sounds like a lot of time/work, & you would definitely need a fume board that has a solar top. I have never tried to run a queen & everyone else out of brood boxes, but even when running them out of honey supers, it is quicker with a solar fume board, but still takes time. I have never heard of bee repellent being hard on brood. Not understanding your ultimate purpose. Trying to run a two queen colony, swarm control, or? Why not just make nucleus colonies or vertical splits, as suggested?


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## little_john (Aug 4, 2014)

blamb61 said:


> The new hive will have the old queen and the nurse bees. The old hive will have all the fly-backs and the capped and open brood to raise a new queen.


I can't see the attraction of this - I just don't 'get it' - and the use of a fume board sounds bloody awful to me.

IF (big IF) the purpose is to make a split by separating the Queen and Nurse Bees from the colony, and leaving open and sealed brood behind to be cared for by foragers on the old stand (which it sounds like) - then you could achieve the same result by moving the original box to a new stand, and shaking-off the queen (carefully) and the nurse bees and moving those bee-less frames back to a box on the old stand ....

*... BUT (big BUT), you write "The old hive will have all the fly-backs and the capped and open brood to raise a new queen." BIG MISTAKE. *

It is perfectly true that foragers have the ability to revert to nurse bees - given a few days - and the youngest of the foragers will most certainly be able to do this - BUT - in order for a colony to raise it's own queen it needs lots of nurse bees, and not just any old nurse bees - but nurse bees which are already in feeding mode - and you won't have these in that colony for several days.

The result will be (at best) a scrub queen - is that what you really want ? Strongly suggest you re-think this 'technique' again. There are sound underlying reasons why certain procedures have become pretty-much 'standard' amongst beekeepers - and that's because they work.

The basic principle underpinning any self-queening split is that the old queen stays with the foragers, and the open brood (the potential new queen) stays with the nurse bees - the more nurse bees, the better quality any resulting queen(s) will be.

LJ


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