> ... I  have decided to post all three parts as well as some stuff by 
> Charlie Mraz and Leslie Bailey at: 
> http://groups.google.com/group/upstate-new-york-beekeeping

Good stuff.  Thanks.

Reading Chas. Mraz's article, I recall we had many hot discussions here 
years back, about the wisdom of raising queens by emergency impulse.  I took 
a lot of lumps.

In Chas. Mraz's article at http://tinyurl.com/5gs2pf,  I see this:

> When we divide, we pick the colonies that were the best producers the 
> season before. We winter our colonies in 2-1/2 or more brood chambers so 
> that even in early spring the colonies are strong and divisions of good 
> strength can be easily made with one full hive body containing plenty of 
> bees, honey and sealed brood and enough eggs to produce cells. This 
> division, without  the queen, is placed on  top of  the parent colony 
> above a solid cover with an entrance. This saves  the need of extra covers 
> and bottom boards.

> We do not graft, but  just  let  the bees produce  their own cells, and do 
> not  look at  them again until a month  later with queens will be laying. 
> After the queens are laying, the nucleus and queen can be moved anywhere 
> needed for requiring or replacement. We  find queens produced  in  this 
> manner are equal  to  those produced by any
other system. By  letting  each  division  raise  its  own  queen, we 
reproduce  only  one  daughter  from  each mother queen. This helps greatly 
to prevent in-breeding and prevent losing our basic stock of breeding 
queens.

I never did recall where I got the idea of walk-Away splits, but it must 
have been from him, as he had quite an influence and he was up to Alberta a 
time or two.  I remember being on stage with him one time when he requested 
a volunteer for an apitherapy demonstration and being marked with a pen, 
then stung in the elbow.  I tend to get 'tennis elbow' by picking up supers 
with one hand.  The sting did not have any effect that I recall -- FWIW.

He was one of the greats and shared his ideas freely far and wide.

Thanks for the reminder.

allen

http://www.honeybeeworld.com/spring/splits.htm#Comparing
---
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on 
the things you have long taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970) 

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