Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Making Splits

 Remember last week? When I made a split from the "Wild Hive"?
I got a text, with a picture of the hives, and all the girls were hanging out, outside.


 So I checked on them today. They have no less than 6 capped queen cells! These girls are determined to swarm! There are 2 in the medium super, with the rest in the deeps. I'm going to split them again and bring some bees over to Nancy's. She said she wanted some bees in her yard. =) I'm going to pull the medium super, and make it into a hive by itself. Then, I'll split the deep into either 2 or 3 hives. (Depending on how many deeps I can find in the garage!) If they need to swarm after that, I'm going to let 'em.

 The other hive is doing just fine, not quite as strong, but they've been happily playing "Queens in the Corners". None had eggs, so no worries there.

The downside to splits, is that you get less honey. But the upside is that I'll have more hives, so better odds of having some surviving the winter, (Even if I need to combine them later.) and likely more hives to work with next year. That's the hope, anyway. =)

 From now on, I'll be calling that hive "The Queenmaker". =D Wish me luck with my splits!

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