# You can get more bees or you can get more honey…..



## Apiator (Apr 8, 2011)

Seems fairly obvious... if you split, you have twice as many colonies making honey... so you get more... next year!


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## bluegrass (Aug 30, 2006)

More bees eat more honey


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## Omie (Nov 10, 2009)

you could try this middle ground, starting from one Spring hive...get some honey _and_ some splits/nucs:
http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/NucManagement.pdf


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## tommyt (Aug 7, 2010)

Its all bad
let the bees go 
start Golfing or raising gerbils

Tommyt


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## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

Omie said:


> you could try this middle ground, starting from one Spring hive...get some honey _and_ some splits/nucs:
> http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/NucManagement.pdf


Wow, that is interesting. I am going to print that out and hang it in my cubicle. A picture is worth a thousand words.


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## cat (Jun 29, 2010)

I had two hives last year, both started and treated the same from packages. They both did well and had lots of bees. One hive swarmed in July, just after the peak of our nectar flow here, and raised a new queen. The other hive stayed boiling over with bees. I had more honey to take from the swarm hive than the other (laying brood in the honey supers). And the swarm hive survived over winter with plenty of stores left, the other didn't. 

Looking back I should have done some splitting, but it was my first year and I was just barely staying ahead of the learning curve as it was.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Nabber86 said:


> What am I missing here?


That you don't have to split the hive to prevent swarming?


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## jal_ut (Jul 22, 2010)

If you have a good strong colony in two deeps, they will almost always start queen cells and swarm unless you take certain steps. 
One: check them each week. 
Two: When you see queen cells, cut them and reverse the boxes. Put on a queen excluder and super. 
Three: Hope.......... 

Sometimes this works to keep the bees together, but the darned things do as they please. If a flow starts about the time you add the super, they usually go to work packing nectar and forget swarming. They usually swarm when the queen cells are sealed. Don't let them get this far along. 

The swarm cells are usually along the bottoms of the top box of frames. To make a quick check for swarm cells just tilt up the top box so you can see the bottoms of the frames.

If you can keep them together, they will sure make loads of honey.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I don't split right down the middle. When I get a hive that is growing too fast and seems on the verge of swarming, I swarm for them. But I decide how many bees leave. Sometimes I take the queen and 3-4 frames of capped brood (along with the bees) and put them in a nuc box. Sometimes I shake a couple of frames of extra bees in. Sometimes I put a queen cell in or a purchased queen in the old hive or just let them raise a queen. 

Sometimes I just take the capped brood (I usually take capped brood since it will make the most immediate difference in both hives) and leave the queen behind. I can take a few frames from a few hives and mix them to make nucs. The old hives will still make a full honey crop and you get some new hives. If a queen that you buy or a cell fails, you can just combine your old queen back with the hive after the flow or at the point that you find the problem


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## Whitetail (Feb 3, 2011)

Do like Michael Palmer was implying. Don't split them. Cut queen cells once. All of them. Might want to brush the bees from the frames so you don't overlook one. If you come back a week later and they made more cells, remove the queen, and the cells. Give them a ripe cell. Or you can put a feeder on top, add a frame of grafts and make fifty cells. If I was commercial sized I would requeen if they even pondered it. That break in the brood cycle, and the addition of a young queen should prevent swarming.


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## megank (Mar 28, 2006)

Apiator said:


> Seems fairly obvious... if you split, you have twice as many colonies making honey... so you get more... next year!


But then don't you have to split again?


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## Whitetail (Feb 3, 2011)

Yes megank, you will have to split again, or use the above method I mentioned. To get the most honey, you must keep an older, established colony from swarming, and not divide them. Pay close attention to what Michael Palmer states. The man is light years ahead of most beeks on here. There's more to it than just adding supers or flipping your boxes. There are biological triggers that instigate swarming. That's why re-queening is effective. Leave them queenless for a short spell and allow a break in the brood cycle. Young queens are not prone to swarm. Young queen + established, unsplit colony= honey (weather permitting of course)


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## mixofsam (May 30, 2009)

You can also try checkerboarding or opening the brood nest to reduce the swarming impulse (if you are not interested in splitting)......see link below.
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesswarmcontrol.htm#opening

Chris


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Here's what that saying means to me. You can expand your apiary by splitting - and you probably should. But when you do that, not only do you not make much honey relative to number of hives, but you never build up the supply of drawn comb that you need next year to help keep them from swarming, and to make a really good honey crop. 

In the first spring with overwintered hives - when you don't have drawn comb - you might split early to keep them from swarming and then recombine for the main honey flow.


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## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

David, I think you have identified the problem that most newbies face - lack of drawn comb. This is the first year I have drawn comb in honey supers to add to the hives. I am interested to see how much difference it makes to the swarming urge.


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## Fuzzy (Aug 4, 2005)

"What am I missing here?"

Quite simply..... You must figure out how to prevent swarming !
Checkout Walt Wright papers on Checkerboarding and figure out how to properly apply his approach. It Works !

If the bees don't swarm, you get a huge population AND lots of honey.


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## David LaFerney (Jan 14, 2009)

Adrian Quiney WI said:


> David, I think you have identified the problem that most newbies face - lack of drawn comb. This is the first year I have drawn comb in honey supers to add to the hives. I am interested to see how much difference it makes to the swarming urge.


I've about reached the number of hives I want - any more would be too much work - and I'm hoping that next year I'll have enough comb. It must be nice.


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## Stonefly7 (Nov 3, 2005)

Nabber,

Who told you you can not have both? 

With the exception of David, who has enough to manage, most commercials want to expand through splits. They actually have to in most cases. As Michael mentioned, less bees to eat honey, more honey to pull for me. It's actually the opposite of what you are thinking. You are always going to find Q cells when your numbers are large. You can't checkerboard, you barely have time to rotate boxes.

For swarm management, you check for cells, if there make nucs as noted. If not rotate them, and throw on another box, let em move up, break it off and make a split. It keeps going like this for weeks until you have to run back and start supering.

We have to rotate new foundation in when we split, as we cull old stuff, so foundation on 5 frames builds just as fast. Remember its a cell, so they have time to draw. That split will have a super or two of honey for production at seasons end. The original with new Q or new cell, will also have a super or two of honey. 

At least that's the goal!


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## fish_stix (May 17, 2009)

Maybe it depends on your locale but we don't find that splits cause any loss of honey, assuming you start out with strong hives. We take a couple frames of capped brood plus bees, a frame of honey, frame of pollen and a drawn empty frame and add a cell. This leaves the original hive strong with their old queen. If swarm cells are there, we take the old queen and a couple frames of brood, same as a split, and make a nuc. This leaves the original hive strong, with some capped and young brood and we add a cell or two. The whole trick to getting honey is having strong hives; you can't do that if you wait 2 months between inspections and let the bees swarm or die off due to pests or disease. If you want honey work the bees.


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