# requeening / making splits on 4-way pallets



## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Yes it works but your mileage may vary. Scatter them as much as possible and alternate the orientation of the entrances, anything but side by side in a straight line. We do it and generally get an 80 to 85% success rate. Your challenge with large doubles will be getting the size right.


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

jim lyon said:


> anything but side by side in a straight line.
> .


Well said Jim, more space between hives the better.


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## Horse Shoe (Apr 10, 2012)

jim lyon said:


> Yes it works but your mileage may vary. Scatter them as much as possible and alternate the orientation of the entrances, anything but side by side in a straight line. We do it and generally get an 80 to 85% success rate. Your challenge with large doubles will be getting the size right.



Jim, 
Can you explain "getting the size right" a little more please. 
Thanks
Ron


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Horse Shoe said:


> Jim,
> Can you explain "getting the size right" a little more please.
> Thanks
> Ron


Cell acceptance in large crowded hives with lots of older field bees can be unpredictable. Also if you have old queens side by side with queen less nucs bees will gravitate back to the old queens.


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

Also if you have large entrances, you should use an entrance block and push the flight to the outside of the pallet. Then you can get to over 90 percent take. And if they are to big use cell protectors.


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## Markt (Feb 8, 2012)

I've done it on 6 way pallets randomly oriented with good success... Even made up 12 nucs on a 6 way as an experiment (divider board in the middle of each box and a dadoed piece of wood separating the entrances) and they all mated properly. I should mention that my boxes are different colours, that might be important. Bottom line I wouldn't be too nervous


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## beegolden (May 1, 2014)

Thank you all with the tips and information! I'm going to give it my all and hope to see good mating flights! I will randomly orientate them and place some land markers near the entrances of the pallets/hives for reference!


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## crocodilu911 (Apr 17, 2015)

i do not know if you need my advice, but i will give it anyway. 

play the number's game. do your splits, and then place 1 queen cell in them. go back 3 days later and put in a younger queen cell, and again in 3 days. that is if you have the time. if not, you know they have those sticker you can buy in different colours, that stick on wood? well, use those on your pallets, or just go buy some different colour paint, and a few geometrical shape templates( you can also make those out of cardboard) and at nioght you can go paint the front of your hives, with a good, eco friendly paint. that will take care of your issue. i have done this e few years back and it worked, as far as i was concerned. i also played the numer's game at the same time, had one worker to pay so i kept him busy 



beegolden said:


> After getting the bees back from the almonds, hives are boiling out with bees in double deeps. I planned on making some splits while in the oranges and in the foothills with ripe queen cells. But was concerned with the queen and her mating flight in a yard with all similar in box conf. and color using 4 way pallets. Has anyone had good success requeening with cells on pallets? or am I better off to put them on bottom boards and randomly set hives in the yard? I got a late start to my queen rearing operation and unfortunately don't have enough mated queens at the time ( all were mated in 5 frame nuc boxes randomly painted and placed ) I have had good success with this method, and have never played around with requeening/ making splits with ripe queen cells on 4 way pallets. Any comments or input appreciated.


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## beesohappy (Jun 3, 2009)

beegolden said:


> Thank you all with the tips and information! I'm going to give it my all and hope to see good mating flights! I will randomly orientate them and place some land markers near the entrances of the pallets/hives for reference!



So how did it go? I made up 32 about 20 days ago and haven't had a chance to check them. I laid mine out with about 10' between them and off set them in a zig zag pattern.


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