Post by steveinpa on Apr 21, 2017 2:04:59 GMT
The weather here is about 2 weeks ahead of schedule. My apples started blooming today and they don't usually get going until May 1.
I had an overwintered 5-over-5 nuc that was starting to get ornery after being gentle and mild going into winter including during the fall when bees tend to get defensive. I asked on another site about it and one of the replies is that bees can get cranky 2 or 3 weeks before swarming. Made sense so I did a deep dive inspection. No swarm cells but several full frames of capped brood, lots of stores, and open brood.
I've been wanting to try out OTS splitting so I figured I would give it a shot. I notched 3 frames of open brood and moved the queen, a frame of open brood, capped brood, and stores to another 5 frame nuc. I gave them an extra shake of nurse bees too.
Right away the queenless hive calmed down. I got stung 2x working in the garden the previous week when I was nowhere near the bees. Today the queenless hive was a buzz of activity as it sits in my orchard. Apples, pears, and cherries are all blooming right now.
I split Monday and today was the first I've seen any foragers working at the queenright nuc. They are taking feed and look good when I peek in the feedhole on top.
Next Wed I will split up the queenless hive into 2 or 3 nucs, borrowing frames from my other hives if necessary to get them going. That assumes I have queen cells on the frames I notched. If everything goes right (which rarely happens) they will explode when our flow starts in late May early June.
I had an overwintered 5-over-5 nuc that was starting to get ornery after being gentle and mild going into winter including during the fall when bees tend to get defensive. I asked on another site about it and one of the replies is that bees can get cranky 2 or 3 weeks before swarming. Made sense so I did a deep dive inspection. No swarm cells but several full frames of capped brood, lots of stores, and open brood.
I've been wanting to try out OTS splitting so I figured I would give it a shot. I notched 3 frames of open brood and moved the queen, a frame of open brood, capped brood, and stores to another 5 frame nuc. I gave them an extra shake of nurse bees too.
Right away the queenless hive calmed down. I got stung 2x working in the garden the previous week when I was nowhere near the bees. Today the queenless hive was a buzz of activity as it sits in my orchard. Apples, pears, and cherries are all blooming right now.
I split Monday and today was the first I've seen any foragers working at the queenright nuc. They are taking feed and look good when I peek in the feedhole on top.
Next Wed I will split up the queenless hive into 2 or 3 nucs, borrowing frames from my other hives if necessary to get them going. That assumes I have queen cells on the frames I notched. If everything goes right (which rarely happens) they will explode when our flow starts in late May early June.