# Split a queenless hive?



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

I have a new queen on order due in Tuesday; I may have the opportunity to get a free QC this weekend. Down to one and I want to get back up to four hives for the winter. Can I put the QC in the hive this weekend, and then when / if the new queen comes in do an even split, reverse the openings of the boxes, move them 3 feet and put the new queen in the half without the QC? It is going for the first 70 degree day of the year and I am going to take a good look for some eggs this weekend (last chance to verify there is a queen. Not wanting to pass up any resources but don’t want to kill my last getting greedy.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

In theory yes.

BUT.. How long has your hive been queenless? Very possible there is a queen in there, not mated yet. 

So many people buy queens from me because they discover their hive is queenless so they think they can just buy one and stick it in. Doesn't work that way.

Do you know how long the hive has been queenless, is there any brood at all in there?


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

I may have found a queen! She was running, I grabbed out my camera and the battery was dead as a doornail. I grabbed out my orange Queen marking pen that I had been using the entire day before at Bee Day (marking drones) but when I went for the a “grab” I got nervous that she may still be a virgin and I may screw up here wing. I tapped her and she hit reverse when I did so I got a nice dot and a streak up her face. Now what? Queen arrives Tuesday, everybody is looking for queens I could defer to next week, I could do an even split, going through the entire hive until I find her. Face the two boxes the opposite direction and later in the week reverse them. BTW we are having record heat here this last weekend and there is not a tree that is not blooming. I have maple, cherry, apples, pears, an almond (novelty tree for this area) lilac and dang near every other thing going until we get bad weather for after my split date. I went through the entire box yesterday and I had a small patch of brood zero eggs or larvae.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Don't worry Minz I here this exact story ALL THE TIME from people wanting to buy queens from me. If they've just discovered the hive queenless, I make them wait before I send them a queen.

If the queen was running and was fast, that sounds like a virgin. You still didn't say how long the hive has been queenless so I don't know when she will be due to start egg laying.

All else being equal, emergency raised virgin queens have around a 75 % success rate at mating. IE, around 25% of them don't mate and dissapear. Because you have inked the virgin, her chances of successful mating are probably reduced.

So you have two main options. Onsell the caged queen to somebody else and hope your queen mates, or split the hive. If you split it, the virgin may already have been flying and know the location of the hive. So you will have to leave one split, with the virgin in it, in that exact location. The other split can have the caged queen introduced. I would recommend moving the split that will be requeend, somewhere more than 3 miles away, to prevent all the bees drifting back to the other split. Maybe you have friends, relations, work mates, who would be prepared to babysit a hive in their backyard for a month. I would also recommend, if you can get a frame of brood from somewhere, putting a frame of brood into the split that will get the caged queen. This will greatly improve the likelihood of the bees accepting the caged queen.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

Thanks OT, dug out the log tonight to give you some more info. I lost the west hive on Mar 27 after a pair of freak snow storms hit us. 4 frames of capped brood in that single deep overwinter nuc. April 2 east hive had strong flying orientation bee flights, reversed the hive bodies, added the drawn comb from the starved hive and noted both bodies were low on capped brood, did not do a frame by frame report. Pulled undrawn plastic frames the bees did not draw last year. Replaced with drawn from dead out. This Complicated issues since I can now not tell the dead capped brood from new brood. 
I am going to see if they will delay me picking up my queen for a week. Last week when I called they said that they had a waiting list as long as my arm but mine would be in this week. That should give me some time to see if she got out and got mated or if a replacement will be in order. In action is not one of my strong suits, thanks for talking me through it. The hive is real calm, lots of pollen coming in, not what I would expect from one that is QL but what do I know.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

minz said:


> I am going to see if they will delay me picking up my queen for a week.


 Sounds like a plan.

Actually, if you were in the hive on 2nd April, and that's when the origional queen had some kind of accident, (if that happened), that would be just enough time for the bees to have raised the new queen you saw. The queen will normally start laying around a month from the time the egg was laid that she came from, which would make it around 2nd May. Or maybe a few days longer.

So if you could delay your queen for two weeks would work better with the time frames involved. It's most likely though, that in 2 weeks you'll have a laying queen and not need the bought one.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

Well I delayed her a week. We have had a record high temperature weekend (change for us here in the Pacific NW) and I see from the MB’s Math page +/- 5 days for a laying queen. I am hoping to get a frame of brood to anchor a nuc to use the queen on. I have a spot lined up about 4 miles away for when she comes (either way). I had better get a super on that double deep because they have nothing to do with all that food for the next week or so. Maybe just put on a shallow and see if I can get a frame of cut comb honey for my trouble. Thanks for the quick and definitive advice!


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Never try to mark a loose queen. She needs to be firmly in hand. Marking her face could leave her blind and unable to fly. Getting paint in their spiracles will affect their breathing. Getting it in their joints will affect their mobility.

Most people who think their hive is queenless are wrong. They just don't know bee math...
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

Even if you seriously suspect they are queenless with good reason, the foolproof solution is to give them the means to make a queen and see what happens.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beespanacea.htm


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

I lived by the panacea last year. I fed frames of brood to that West hive until the East hive was so weak it almost did not make the winter. The west Hive went into fall weak and was robbed out by the hive I fed the brood to it. The swarm capture was robbed out by yellow jackets and the overwinter nuc starved on four frames of brood in April. I have nothing else to give it!
Every fruiting and landscape for miles is now in bloom. Put a frame of brood into the hive may tell me if it is queenless, but letting them grow their own queen (like I did last year) would put me 38 days to a laying queen and 42 days to foragers. 80 days from now the flow will be over and I will have saved $20. If I did have a queen and it was 50 and raining in April there is still a second half-drones. 38 days, and without drones all I have is poorly mated queen that will be superseded quickly and go through the same cycle. 
I live by Bush Farms web pages but was wondering more if the +/- shown for the queen laying final number causes. We went from 60’s to 80’s our first 70 degree day of the year was 80 this last weekend. It is now back to 60 and rain I needed her out on the -5 days and finding drones.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Your maths is good, looks like a laying queen might be in order, but do make sure the hive you introduce it to IS queenless, plus give them a frame of brood to assist with queen acceptance if you can spare one.

Another thing, must be psychology or something, but people will spend ages figuring if they should spend $25 on a queen, but think nothing of spending the same on a visit to a cafe. If a bought queen will work best for you, do it.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

Old Timer, You were right on the Money! Put off the queen and this last Sunday I checked it and lo and behold small larvae and eggs. She is going at it with a vengeance. Nice pattern. Top deep second frame in was full, 3 frame in was full of eggs. There was no capped honey left in the top box. I did not dig into the bottom box. I called to cancel the queen and she gave me a lecture. Now I am back to doing a split. I figure I will put a frame of new brood into a box with a frame of honey (if I can find one) frame of brood, frame of drawn from a swarm trap I will pull from the field and a feeder. I took your advice and got permission to pop it in a friends field for a while about 5 miles away. Please critique my split technique or give advice. I am in the process of building some frames but I am “bulking” each step so I have about 60 or so about 85% done.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

minz said:


> checked it and lo and behold small larvae and eggs. She is going at it with a vengeance. Nice pattern. Top deep second frame in was full, 3 frame in was full of eggs.


 Always like a happy ending! 

Your split technique sounds good, just bear in mind it will be 2 - 3 weeks till you have new bees emerging in any number, so monitor population levels to make sure they don't get too weak meantime. I'm taking it you made the split because she forced you to buy the queen anyway?

No honey in the top box, could be a concern, after what you've been through you don't want to lose them to starvation, so if you can somehow get a shot of sugar syrup into them would be a good thing. If you don't have any equipment to do this, a simple way is a bucket or large container of some sort, with holes punched in the lid big enough for a bee to get it's tongue through, filled with syrup and placed holes side down on the frames of the top box, then an empty super on the hive and lid on top. Syrup should be mixed as thick as you can get it so the bees are getting concentrated food and don't have to mess with too much water.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I lived by the panacea last year. I fed frames of brood to that West hive until the East hive was so weak it almost did not make the winter. The west Hive went into fall weak and was robbed out by the hive I fed the brood to it.

The point is to only take a frame of eggs (with perhaps a little newly hatched larvae) and swap it with a drawn comb. This will not weaken a weak hive because the bees can't raise all the eggs the queen can lay anyway and she will quickly replace them (assuming she has the drawn comb to lay in). If it's a strong hive, of course, it makes little difference as they have the manpower to make up any difference.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

I got my queen today. It seems smaller than the nurse bees in the cage. Smallest queen I have ever seen. I got weathered out on my operation. Hail, patches of heavy rain and a high of 50 degrees. 
I am going to do a 50/50 split, leave the cork in the queen cage. Add a feeder to each of the deeps. 3 qts of 1:1. Try to get the queen right over to Boring. Saturday I will check them both for eggs and real small larvae and hope to have eggs in the correct box. 
If not I have to look for QC and move the caged queen back to the other box and see if I have enough bees to cover the QC in a mating nuc (don’t know how many that would be)
If QC exists I will move with a frame to a 4 way nuc (split deep with feeder) and drop that hive back to Boring. 
If I got it correct I will attempt to capture the queen upon release, mark her properly, maybe clip a wing with a clippers and release her directly. 
MB, just reporting my experiences on moving a frame of brood from one hive to the other. Maybe if it was a strong hive it would have been fine but I started with a couple of nucs and with the plastic they did not build it out even feeding. A frame of brood a week was too much for the little hive. I should have put attempted to graft a couple of small larve into a wax cup and see what they would do with them. Worst case it would be out a couple of bees. New year, new plan. First I need to get healthy so I have at least one hive to fall back on.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Do you have a queen excluder? If so, you can make the process easier and faster, without having to find the queen, by selecting the frames you will use to make your split. (brood, honey, etc.). Shake all bees off them and put them in a super, on top of a queen excluder and above the main brood box. Overnight bees will move into it but not the queen, the next day you lift it off and it's your split, queenless and ready to go.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

I will have to send you a Christmas card this year.
I am getting the point on this. But having trouble with the order. Sounds like my queen would be trapped in the super above the brood boxes. I have two deeps and a shallow (not drawn), bottom entrance and the top box has a hole cut in it (old used box). I have ton of empty boxes all sizes, no or little drawn comb (see early post about panacea). I am on my way home now and will check my mail when I get there and try it if you will walk me through it. Leaving the queen stuck in the super will not work since it is going to get cold and the brood above an undrawn super sounds like a death sentence for a full box.


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

OK, well if it's too cold to manipulate in that way, better not. But not quite sure I explained myslef properly. At this stage, you have brood in the two lower boxes? If so, you make one of them into your split in terms of the combs that are in it, but if you cannot find the queen you shake all the bees out of that box into the bottom one, so the queen will be in the bottom one. Then you put the other box, the split, back on where it was, but with an excluder between so the bees can move through the excluder back to where they were. But the queen will be trapped in the bottom so next day or even a few hours later you can remove the split.

But if that's not going to work for whatever reason could try what you say, but it sounds like that involves keeping the queen caged for another 5 days? if so, it could be tough on her.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

Raining sideways and 50 here so shaking bees out is not going to happen. I was trying to think of the sequence of operations for the shake out and it almost sounded like the riddle of the guy that had the fox, the chicken and the seed that he had to get across the river....
If I get the queen in the correct box It should only be 3 days. If I get it wrong I save her life by putting her in the other. Maybe too much risk / contingency planning. 
Isn’t it the middle of the night there now?


----------



## Oldtimer (Jul 4, 2010)

Lunchtime.


----------



## minz (Jan 15, 2011)

Better to be lucky than good. Third frame in and there was a queen with an orange face! It may not show up well on the picture but a hunter orange spot moving on the frame is easy to see. That has to be better than a yellow spot! The flash really lit up the larvae. 
Now I know which box the queen is in. I put a feeder in each box, left the cork in the end of the cage. Weather is rain and high of 56 for the next couple of days. Box was queenless for about 2 hours. Any advice on how long before marking and releasing?

http://i1141.photobucket.com/albums/n599/6minz/Queen5-2.jpg


----------

