# Split advice



## TroyDM (Jul 15, 2014)

Not sure what to do. I have never done a split but I need to do it soon. I understand how to do it but my question is:

Do I need to remove the new split from the area for a week or two or can I leave it here on my property? I don’t really have a good place to take them. I was going to go through and find my queen and move her to the new hive along with brood, honey, pollen. Leave the old hive in place. Last time I was in my hive, they looked like they were just starting to build 1 or 2 queen cells so they should be getting ready this weekend or so.

I live in Lake Placid, NY (way upstate so its just now starting to feel like spring). Had 2 hives last year. Both did very well but I lost one over the winter. The other hive absolutely thrived. Not sure why. Both hives were exactly the same and I treated them exactly the same. Strange.

Thanks in advance guys!

Troy


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

TroyDM said:


> Not sure what to do. I have never done a split but I need to do it soon. I understand how to do it but my question is:
> 
> Do I need to remove the new split from the area for a week or two or can I leave it here on my property? I don’t really have a good place to take them. I was going to go through and find my queen and move her to the new hive along with brood, honey, pollen. Leave the old hive in place. Last time I was in my hive, they looked like they were just starting to build 1 or 2 queen cells so they should be getting ready this weekend or so.
> 
> ...


If you only have 1 apiary location and you need to make a split, try making a deal with a friend at least 3 miles away. Put your split in their apiary for a few weeks. Return the favor when they need it.


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## orthoman (Feb 23, 2013)

I have moved the queen with some brood and some honey frames and drawn comb or foundation, into a box above a queen excluder on the hive I was going to split -- left them there for several hours and then moved the box with the queen and attendant house bees to a bottom board in the same apiary. 

Most of the bees are house bees being transferred at that point and will stay in the hive as they are house/nurse bees. The original hive - as long as there are eggs and very young larvae - raised a new queen. There wasn't much activity outside the split/nuc for about a week until the nurse/house bees become foragers. Watch for robbing of the smaller split.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

I do numerous splits every year. I move the split with the queen to the other side of the apiary.. 100 feet or so.. in my small yard it's 20 feet. If the bees have started queen swarm cells you have about 5 days to do the split. When the cell is capped, the queen is leaving and she is going to take roughly 2/3 of the bees with her. you may have to feed the split as the foragers will diminish due to drifting, but they will rebound quickly. my splits done April 15th are in ten frame deeps ready for a second now. I started in 5 frame nucs.


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## TroyDM (Jul 15, 2014)

UPDATE - Found a friend who lives about 5 miles away to agree to let me park the hive on his 65 acres for a couple of weeks. He is terrified of bees. funny story.

Anyway, started going through the boxes today and immediately found my queen. looking great. moved a bunch of honey, pollen, brood, and plenty of bees with the queen over in my split. the hive is busting at the seams with pollen and honey and tons of brood. next i started looking for the queen cell that i saw them building 15 days ago. just as i thought, it was about to pop. textbook looking queen cell. 

got the split moved over to my friends house without a hitch. 

so the hive that i split now has 2 brood boxes and 2 supers. there was so much in the main hive that i decided to split the hive into a new brood box and a super. removed 4 brood box frames full of everything and 4 frames out of the super (some with only honey and some with more brood).

Not sure if adding the super in the split was the right move but the hive was so busy and healthy that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. my thought process was to give the main hive more room to work.

Thoughts anyone?

Thanks again for all the help. Love this site, everyone's input is always right and appreciated!

Troy


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