# Made my first OTS split tonight.



## mxr618

Please. 

I am going to do one Saturday. Truthfully, I'm a little nervous. I'm transitioning between studying all the written words and actually doing it. 

I'm going for honey and the idea of pinching queens is quite foreign to me.

I'll share my photos and information, too. Good luck!


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## Chemguy

I followed this method last year. It worked well, but resulted in some pretty thick burr comb since I spaced the frames with cells farther apart than normal, to avoid any possible damage to the cells.

I hope this works well for you. I'm going with standard splits this year, using mated queens. Nothing against OTS, it's just that my timing is off this year.


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## TurnTex

Can someone direct me to something about this? What is an OTS split?


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## thehackleguy

TurnTex said:


> Can someone direct me to something about this? What is an OTS split?


OTS = On The Spot queen rearing as described by Mel Disselkoen ( http://www.mdasplitter.com/ ). 

Basically, you take your current queen with two frames of capped brood and do a split. Then in the full strength (queenless) colony you "notch" some larva cells that are younger than 36 hrs old and allow them to raise the new queen. Similar to a walk away split but some emergency queens can be smaller and *possibly* inferior to a properly raised queen. By notching the cells, you are allowing the bees to build a nice, full-size queen cell and feed the larva properly. At least that is the idea. I'm trying it because I like the idea and I really like this queen I have so I'm trying to split her off and hopefully get a good producing daughter.

mxr618, I'm not going to pinch my queen.....I like her to much  But I also split her off at a different time. As described in Mel's literature, by splitting on May 1 (43 parallel) you will have a laying queen by June 1, then pinch her on July 1 and notch cells and make splits after that. I don't see any reason that you couldn't still split the queen off and make just one fewer split if you like the queen. 

As a side note, I'm not trying to get the max number of splits. I'm just trying to double my hive count for winter so I can cover my losses. According to the book, you _could_ get something crazy like 13 splits from a strong colony over one season........I would just end up killing everything doing that because I don't know what the hell I'm doing 

Here are some pics of my notches:















I'll post some pics of developing queen cells, or lack there-of, as they progress.


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## rwlaw

mxr618 said:


> Please.
> 
> I am going to do one Saturday. Truthfully, I'm a little nervous. I'm transitioning between studying all the written words and actually doing it.
> 
> I'm going for honey and the idea of pinching queens is quite foreign to me.
> 
> I'll share my photos and information, too. Good luck!


You don't have to dispatch the queen until after the summer solstice for the brood break.
I always count the breeder queen as a split. You also have that hive for brood source if any of the splits has a mismating.
Hackle guy, looking good! 
With that fresh comb they'll have no problem drawing Q cells


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## Tenbears

OTS = The new watch word, simply a walk away split that one alters the comb containing eggs to encourage the bees to use those eggs to build queens in the parent hive.


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## Vance G

It is an important little more than that. A valuable tool for small timers like me.


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## FlowerPlanter

I wonder if notching the heck out of several frames, like twenty notches per frame. Will they make a whole mess of q cells? 

What's the most cells do you think they would make?

I could harvest all the cells then return the two frames and the queen back to the same hive, and not set that hive back too much.


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## Tenbears

Vance G said:


> It is an important little more than that. A valuable tool for small timers like me.


 Yes, Vance it is! However, what many are deeming as OTS is in reality nothing more than I have described above. Taking away the true values of OTS


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## McBee7

Great Pics Thehackleguy....
I bought his book a couple of months ago and will try it soon..Thanks..

==McBee7==


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## rwlaw

In my opinion, the OTS method is founded on Mel's research of how to get the maximum yield of Q cells of of a hive without having to do all the work of the other methods. When the notching is done, the bees have the choice of larvae that they would normally make workers.
He told me that one day he was working a hive and just out of curiosity he notched a cell with a stick and they made a queen cell out of it.
It's not a perfect method (the bees don't read) and I'm still learning, but hey, when I can notch a hive and on average I get 3 nucs plus the breeder queen out of a double deep hive, put me down as a MDA disciple.


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## thehackleguy

rwlaw said:


> In my opinion, the OTS method is founded on Mel's research of how to get the maximum yield of Q cells of of a hive without having to do all the work of the other methods. When the notching is done, the bees have the choice of larvae that they would normally make workers.
> He told me that one day he was working a hive and just out of curiosity he notched a cell with a stick and they made a queen cell out of it.
> It's not a perfect method (the bees don't read) and I'm still learning, but hey, when I can notch a hive and on average I get 3 nucs plus the breeder queen out of a double deep hive, put me down as a MDA disciple.


I totally agree :thumbsup: Plus Mel is awesome to talk to, I stopped by one day and told him I was a new beek and he helped me with a lot of questions and pointers. 

As far as the whole system goes, I"m basically using it. My timing is a little off this year because I transfered my foundationless Warre' hive over to a foundation Langstroth (took about three weeks total). But next season I will be using Mel's timing because I live so close it should work out the same.


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## Brad Bee

Good thread and I've used the method in the past to raise some really nice queens, but to the OP, there was no need to notch that new comb. The bees could easily manipulate that fresh comb and build queen cells where they wanted them. In fact, I bet they do just that and there will be no difference in them and the queens where you "notched" the comb. OTS is essential IMO for raising good queens on old, hard, brood comb.


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## waynesgarden

thehackleguy said:


> OTS = On The Spot queen rearing as described by Mel Disselkoen ( http://www.mdasplitter.com/ ).
> 
> Basically, you take your current queen with two frames of capped brood and do a split. Then in the full strength (queenless) colony you "notch" some larva cells that are younger than 36 hrs old and allow them to raise the new queen. Similar to a walk away split ......


Yes, similar but what is described here is an over-simplification. Mel's idea deserve a closer read. I see it as a system to maximize resources of an apiary for honey and nuc production while providing brood breaks to assist with Varroa control.

See: http://www.mdasplitter.com
and http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf for a broader overview.

Wayne


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## shinbone

Let us know how it turns out.


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## thehackleguy

waynesgarden said:


> Yes, similar but what is described here is an over-simplification. Mel's idea deserve a closer read. I see it as a system to maximize resources of an apiary for honey and nuc production while providing brood breaks to assist with Varroa control.
> 
> See: http://www.mdasplitter.com
> and http://www.mdasplitter.com/docs/OTS.pdf for a broader overview.
> 
> Wayne


Yes, over simplification......but I don't want to re-print Mel's material...I only think it is right to give him a chance to profit from his years of work,

I will post updates....but to be clear, I do treat with OAV.


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## thehackleguy

shinbone said:


> Let us know how it turns out.



Will do!


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## Adrian Quiney WI

OTS splitting work consistently. I make splits using Mel's principles, and then put them into 5 frame nuc boxes and then add a second level when there is some capped brood, grow them and overwinter them using a variant of Mike Palmer's methods.


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## Richter1978

What Bradbee said. Its got to do with q-cell formation, so that you don't get the usual inferior emergency queens from them having to "float" the larvae out and build small cells. Then there is the brood break and post solstice egg laying rate.


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## thehackleguy

Brad Bee said:


> but to the OP, there was no need to notch that new comb. The bees could easily manipulate that fresh comb and build queen cells where they wanted them. In fact, I bet they do just that and there will be no difference in them and the queens where you "notched" the comb.


Brad,

I know you are right but I'm just starting and want the practice and experience. If they build other QC's I'll have enough to split the original hive also. Keeping my fingers crossed!


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## thehackleguy

Results: Well, so far so good on the split. The hive is booming and working well and they have a queen cell (just one). Brad, you were right, but in a different way :applause: I not only didn't need to notch the new wax, the bees decided that they didn't like those spots and repaired them and built their own cells. They built three but only capped and are caring for one.


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## McBee7

Did my first notch job today,,,I had a hive that was making swarm preps and I pulled a frame of eggs yesterday and they were hatching today....They were on black foundation and when I took the veil off they were as plain as day ... I pulled some frames with swarm cells also , but knew this newly drawn frame was the one to try if I wanted to notch....Will let you know how it's going...
I put the notched frame above a queen excluder above a 5 over 5 nuc with a frame of honey and I checked tonight and , yes the nurse bees had moved up to care for the larve...

==McBee7==


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## thehackleguy

McBee7 said:


> Will let you know how it's going...
> ==McBee7==


Good luck! I did my second OTS split last week, here are some of the queen cells I saw this morning. :thumbsup:


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## COAL REAPER

forgive me if you guys updated somewheres else, but how did you make out over winter?


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## thehackleguy

COAL REAPER said:


> forgive me if you guys updated somewheres else, but how did you make out over winter?


No sir I didn't for sure. I started last spring with one over-wintered hive and 5 nucs. OTS split up to 11 hives, one queen never made it back from mating flight and I combined them, another one superseded their queen in late fall so I shook them out. Leaving me with 9 hives going into fall. Mid-February all 9 were active on warm days, sometime between then and now I did loose one hive....they had lots of food so I don't know why. But all in all not bad, so far I have 8 strong hives going into April.

I do treat for mites with OAV


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## COAL REAPER

That is respectable. I guess you are doing this more for increase and overwinter percentage rather than "outbreeding mites". Did you take any honey? Did you feed much in the fall? Do you have a summer dearth there? Looking at the dates mel lists doing splits, i cant imagine he sees much lack of forage. Sorry for all the questions. I am just exploring if i can incorporate such aggressive splitting where i am at.


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## McBee7

Last spring I started with 12 overwintered nucs and 2 over wintered 10 over tens, and went into fall of 2015/16 with 12---10 over 10 hives and 13 nucs (wintered inside in controled inviro) total of 25 hives...
This spring I have 7--- 10over10 hives and 7 nucs----total of 14 hives.....
I also made about 50gallons honey (500-600 lbs) last year..
I had a knee replacement last fall and didn't get all my winter preps completed...ie- treat all hives with OAV 3 times and feed them enough to not have to feed block sugar to make it till spring...
Any way I'll try to double my hive count this year again and increase my hive populations to generate more honey  And I'll try more notching this year.

==McBee7==


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## thehackleguy

I am doing it for increases and to produce nucs with locally bred queens. I took about 5 gallons of honey (left a lot for the bees) and fed about 30 gallons of 1:1 in the fall (open feeding) I live about 15 miles from Mel so I can use is schedule exactly (lucky) and yes we have almost no derth most years. I will say that I don't think I can make 1:8 increases like Mel does but I'm really just getting started. I figure I can turn one hive into three pretty easy with his system and of course plan to loose some to queens not returning from mating. But then you can use the queenless hive to boost the population of other hives. Really a win-win style of beekeeping.


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## COAL REAPER

thanks guys, good to know.
where i am at typically by the time bees can forage we start off with 6 weeks of pollen for buildup, 6 weeks mostly nectar, then 6+ weeks dearth waiting to see if/when goldenrod comes. this year is different. bees have been flying 4 weeks early and are really able to take advantage of the maples. even so, i still dont see being able to split much and still make a honey crop like mel sings about. i need to have those new queens laying early in order to take advantage of our flow. this year might be warm enough to make starts early, but there isnt much drones to speak of yet to get them mated. if we had flow in july i could totally see his methods for increase AND honey production working quite well. i am thinking i would need to get lots of protein into the hives in addition to syrup. then i have to deal with mad robbing. theres always the effort of storing pollen frames from the spring i suppose. FWIW, i have not been impressed with my hives ability to make surplus while experiencing a brood break.
just thinking out loud here, dont hesitate to comment!


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## Josiah Garber

COAL REAPER said:


> thanks guys, good to know.
> where i am at typically by the time bees can forage we start off with 6 weeks of pollen for buildup, 6 weeks mostly nectar, then 6+ weeks dearth waiting to see if/when goldenrod comes. this year is different. bees have been flying 4 weeks early and are really able to take advantage of the maples. even so, i still dont see being able to split much and still make a honey crop like mel sings about. i need to have those new queens laying early in order to take advantage of our flow. this year might be warm enough to make starts early, but there isnt much drones to speak of yet to get them mated. if we had flow in july i could totally see his methods for increase AND honey production working quite well. i am thinking i would need to get lots of protein into the hives in addition to syrup. then i have to deal with mad robbing. theres always the effort of storing pollen frames from the spring i suppose. FWIW, i have not been impressed with my hives ability to make surplus while experiencing a brood break.
> just thinking out loud here, dont hesitate to comment!


I've thought about this as well as the flows in my area seem similar. Another way of thinking about it would be getting those splits through the winter and then doing honey production in the spring. I think this way would work well.


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