# Splits vs Grafting for increase?



## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

A little confused you are best off to split your hives 8nto nucs and add a grafted cell to each so the answer would be both at the same time


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## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

I thought they were advocating wireless splits left to raise emergency queens.


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## Dave1958 (Mar 25, 2013)

Beejihn is right. Make your cell builder then place finished cells. You can make a hive queenless and cut finished cells out, but lots of work


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## Colobee (May 15, 2014)

If you start 20 grafted queens, you _might_ end up with 10 mated & laying. If you make up 20 queenless splits and let the bees handle it, you _might_ end up with 10 viable splits (with mated & laying queens). 

Either way, much depends on your technique, timing & some luck. As you hone your technique, your success rates will likely climb.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

The splits I made often do not produce a viable queen cell because we are in
a summer dearth right now. So grafting is the only option for me.
In the Spring time and early Autumn it is easier to make the splits as they will produce some cells for me.
I say to do a graft instead or better yet give them the newly mated queens so that the splits will be stronger to overwinter.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

bentonkb said:


> ...Is there any advantage to doing it with splits instead?


No.
Increasing by making splits and having the splits raise a queen on their own is very inefficient. That makes an average of 3 to 4 weeks of no brood being produced and at the same time the older bees are dying. It's self defeating as we are trying to increase hive numbers, so we don't want to be having so much down time with brood rearing. 

Raising queen cells first, and making splits to place them in, reduces the amount of brood rearing down time by half or close to it. Grafting or some other way of producing queen cells ahead of time to place in each split is the way to go for increase.

Some advocate to make walk away splits as this gives full brood rearing break as a way of varroa mite control. But if you are wanting to do some serious increase, graft instead. Even better is to purchase laying queens to place in each split as you make them, but you stated you wanted increase from your own stock, so grafting is the way to go.


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## ethanhogan (Jun 1, 2016)

Look up MdAsplitter and also Larry O'connor increasing essiental, last but not least Michael bush page when you need a quick reference and simple explanation.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

ethanhogan said:


> Look up MdAsplitter and also Larry O'connor increased no essiental, last but not least Michael bush page when you need a quick reference and simple explanation.


+1


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

There are certainly advantages to producing cells ala queen rearing, but the main reason that you graft is to produce many daughters from one exceptional queen thus multiplying her (hopefully) superior genetic traits - Which is hard to do just by splitting.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

David LaFerney said:


> There are certainly advantages to producing cells ala queen rearing, but the main reason that you graft is to produce many daughters from one exceptional queen thus multiplying her (hopefully) superior genetic traits - Which is hard to do just by splitting.





If you are raising 100 hives, yes.....but it you are raising less than you can make almost that many queens from a good producer by notching and splitting the original hive 2x per year. 19 splits off one hive is totally doable.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

Personally, I see what I call "bee time" as the least plentiful resource where I live. So wasting what amounts about 25% of our bee time raising a queen that might mate and lay while also not having any new bees for another 15% of our bee time strikes me as the worst possible way to increase in numbers. Either graft and use ripe cells or outsource your queen production.

Walk away splits might work ok for going from a few to a dozen or so. But increasing 10 fold...? Depends how fast you want to get there.


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## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

RayMarler said:


> No.
> Increasing by making splits and having the splits raise a queen on their own is very inefficient. That makes an average of 3 to 4 weeks of no brood being produced and at the same time the older bees are dying. It's self defeating as we are trying to increase hive numbers, so we don't want to be having so much down time with brood rearing.
> 
> Raising queen cells first, and making splits to place them in, reduces the amount of brood rearing down time by half or close to it. Grafting or some other way of producing queen cells ahead of time to place in each split is the way to go for increase.
> ...


Yeah. I get that now. This spring I did two queenless splits and had one fail. It was an obvious drag on the hives. 

I don't really need any more hives, but I'm going to try grafting next spring.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

jwcarlson said:


> Personally, I see what I call "bee time" as the least plentiful resource where I live. So wasting what amounts about 25% of our bee time raising a queen that might mate and lay while also not having any new bees for another 15% of our bee time strikes me as the worst possible way to increase in numbers. Either graft and use ripe cells or outsource your queen production.
> 
> Walk away splits might work ok for going from a few to a dozen or so. But increasing 10 fold...? Depends how fast you want to get there.


Of course you are right, but if you are using brood breaks to help with mite control instead of other means then splits by way of notching are a good way to go.


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

thehackleguy said:


> Of course you are right, but if you are using brood breaks to help with mite control instead of other means then splits by way of notching are a good way to go.


Right. I will admit to not having done many "walk aways"... Mostly because even if they get a queen mated and laying they still look like hammered crap for another month at least afterward. 

But... Whatever floats your boat, peels your banana, or brews your coffee is just dandy.


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## thehackleguy (Jul 29, 2014)

jwcarlson said:


> they still look like hammered crap for another month at least afterward.


Well that might be a little harsh....but I definitely don't have hives that I to climb a ladder to put supers on


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## jwcarlson (Feb 14, 2014)

:banana:

Join the dark side.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

I did not graft this year but still to make increase I had to produce queens. As afar as splits go. the bees themselves will be split then recombined a couple of times in the process. First a colony was made queenless by moving the queen to a nuc of her own and allowed to start to build it up again. the original colony then produces queen cells. Now I could have grafted larva. made plugs of selected cells or used a Nicot or Jenter type system to produce those selected eggs. It is a lot more work and cells get lost the way we did it. searching every frame to harvest the cells cutting them form the comb etc. Actual number form the first queenless colony was something like 20 cells produced and possibly 15 virgin queens produced from them. Those virgins are either in the original queenless colony or mating compartments at this time. Past results cause me to expect 7 or 8 mated queens when it is all said and done. Rounds two and three have the cells in the incubator now with none having emerged yet. In total there are 20 more cells and I am making no estimate of how many will actually emerge. Round 4 will be removed from the queenless colony today. I am expecting as many as 20 more cells from this colony. It is interesting to see how much of a difference just a few days will make in how many cells a colony will make. We started making colonies queenless on June 19th. even a 5 frame nuc of bees would make 10 queen cells. Now even a full size production colony will only produce a dozen or so. I believe in that same period of time our nectar flow has dropped off. I am ready to remove honey and start feeding them sugar water. Our goal is to make up as many nucs as we can and sell them next spring. We will continue to produce queens and attempt to get them mated until late July. We will not need them that long or nearly as many as we will produce. those extras will be offered for sale on craigs list. The limiting factor to how many splits we can make is the number of frames of bees we have. Our method may be inefficient but by far it is adequate. Producing far more queens than we will need. but until every split is queenright I will continue to produce queens. Waiting for queens to get mated is a big delay. We started June 19th and are still waiting for our first mated queen to be confirmed. Until then those bees are rearing their own virgin queen. If I where to do it again I would have combined those queenless bees with a mated queen until the time virgins had been mated and laying. Our timing was more of an issue of opportunity presenting itself rather than a plan. I would rather have started this process back in April but at that time this past spring we had no bees. We captured swarms and did a couple of cut outs. as soon as they built up enough to split we started splitting. Final measure for the interest of time to make a split and get it built up. I expect to have into November to build these colonies up to winter strength. we have mild winters so winter strength here would not necessarily be what it needs to be in other locations. I will be happy if they manage to reach strong 5 frame nuc size. So far we have gone from no hives to 10 with queens and 11 virgins in mating compartments. more more cells in the incubator and today as many as 20 more. From 0 to as many as 40 colonies in one season. 4 of them swarms and 2 cutouts. cutouts where tiny just getting started colonies. But we did have 6 mated and well laying queens.


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## bentonkb (May 24, 2016)

Daniel Y said:


> So far we have gone from no hives to 10 with queens and 11 virgins in mating compartments. more more cells in the incubator and today as many as 20 more. From 0 to as many as 40 colonies in one season.


What left you beeless in the spring? That is my big fear at this point, total wipe out.

I bought a box of Russians and have a reliable source of feral swarms that I've been catching since 2014. This has been my best season so far and I'm up to six colonies. If I can get four colonies through the winter, treatment free, it will be a big confidence boost.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Totally agree with keeping all the bees working. That is not a straightforward concept. There is a cost to setting up a starter, even a nuc starter. " Hive" is a vague term. Taking a frame from a double is not a major impact. Taking two from a single is.
Are you going to be ready with the hardware or is life going to have the equipment ready two weeks after you need it?
A cutdown split style keeps everybody working with a single frame making a lot of queens and as Daniel says the bees adjust to the future prospects. There are times that the young bees are better put to use in the original hive drawing new comb rather then making surplus queens. Just a higher long term reward.
There is not really a paper answer to your question, just absorb all the possibilities and adjust to your experience, local, bees and season. Not to mention the rest of your lifestyle.


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