On Thu, 27 Apr 1995, Eric Abell wrote:
 
> Allen,
>
> >
> > We split starting May 1.  If you wait longer, they have dwindled from
> > overpopulation and lack of sources, and splitting gets tough.
>
> I have never been entirely happy with my splits.  How about sharing your
> method with us?
 
Here are a few thoughts:
 
-Spring Management
 
There are a number of aspects to spring management of colonies.  The
goals are simple: to maximize honey production, to
maintain or increase colonies, and to make efficive use of resources:
namely,  management, labour, time, vehicles and fuel, feed,
bees, and  hives.  The goal is also to minimize risk of loss due to
missing a honey flow, swarming, chilling of splits, poor
wintering , disease, or inability to manage the work schedule.
 
Activities are interrelated and include splitting, disease detection and
control, medication, mite treatments and surveys, scraping
of floors and hive equipment, moving yards, feeding, removing excess
feed, requeening, and adding space as required.
 
A number of these activities often take place on a single visit to the
yard.  Sometimes a specialised team with unique equipment
might handle one task, while a separate team handles  another task in the
same yard, or somewhere else in the outfit.
 
Splitting
 
There are a number of reasons for making splits and a number of ways of
making them.
 
The main reasons for making splits are:
 
 1.) to increase the number of honey producing hives
                        either in the current year or in the following
year
 2.) To reduce the size of colonies to discourage swarming
                        and to put off  'peaking' until the expected
flow.
3.) Control of mites
4.) To produce income from sale of nucs.
 
There are many ways to make splits, but most ways are variations on the
following:
 
1.) Splitting a two storey hive in half and
2.) selecting brood and feed from a colony (or colonies) and making up
nucs.
 
The timing and size of the splits will determine whether and how much
honey the splits will make in the first year and whether
they will be trouble free or a waste of time, effort and bees.  Generally
the earlier and the larger the split, the better, once pollen
and nectar are available in the field.
 
Adequate feed - both pollen and syrup or honey - must be available at all
times in copious amounts in splits for them to be
successful.  Dry, hard capped combs of old feed may possibly  be okay for
a full strength colony, but nucs need liquid feed
open, and near the brood.  Honey in the hive is not the same as honey in
the bee.  If there is no nectar in open cells around the
brood, your bees are starving, no matter that there may be a flow in
progress, or that the hive is heavy.
 
Warmth is essential.  Use entrance reducers until June, and don't expect
overly small splits to amount to anything.  Remember -
you can always go back and split again and again, but not if the colony
doesn't prosper. Ideally, bees seem to do best when
they occupy about 80 or 100% of their hive space without crowding and
burr comb building (when observed on a 72 degree
day), and they have a little empty comb to work in.  The challenge in
beekeeping is that this condition is not at all stable, and
the colony size often doubles.  This happens almost overnight when a
large hatch of brood comes out.  (See discussion of
queens and laying cycles).  Being able to anticipate when a hatch or a
flow will demand more space is an art.
 
Assessing Hives for Splitting or Reversing
 
Brood must be available in all stages in both boxes of a two storey hive
for the first two types of splits to work well.  One way
of ensuring this is to reverse at least a week before splitting.
 
Hives for Side by side and takeway splits should be selected by tipping
the two boxes forward and looking on the bottom bars
and floor.  If on a 50 degree day there are not bees covering the bottoms
of at least six frames, the hive may be reversed.  This
is advisable  only if there are bees covering several bottom bars,
indicating some brood in the lower box.  They may possibly
need to be split later.
 
Reversing ensures brood will be raised in both boxes - particularly with
older queens, which are less inclined to lay throughout
the hive,  and expands the brood area.  It also encourages reorganizing
of feed in the hive and is thus stimulative. Moreover it
ensures that the lower parts of all frames are used by the bees, reduces
the honey barrier at the top of the hive, and makes the
beekeeper realise when a hive is too light (starving) or too heavy (honey
bound).
 
Be very careful about reversing hives that are not covering combs in both
boxes, because a very real danger for damage to the
brood and colony exists if the weather is at all cool.
 
Comparing 'Side by Side' Splits with  'Take-away' Splits and
'Progressive' Splits
 
The first two types of splits are best done in early May.  In our country
(Central Alberta) splits made before May tenth seem to
produce about as well as other similar colonies which are not split.
 
We always place a made-up empty brood chamber under each half of these
two types of splits to allow for expansion and to
allow room in case the split is made from the heavy half of the
overwintered hive.  The extra space is below, and thus does not
cause a loss of heat.  We then reverse and feed again as soon as the
queen is laying and weather and flow conditions warrant.
 
 Frame feeders are used both top and bottom and we feed liberally.     We
aim to keep our doubles at about 45 to 50 kg total
weight all spring. This breaks down to 10 + 10 for boxes and combs, 2-4
for bees, 5 for lid and floor, and the balance - 20 kg
or so, for pollen and honey.  This is about 8 frames of feed.  On all our
splits, we use entrance reducers until June.
 
        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
 
 Side by side splits are splits made by placing two floors close together
directly in
front of a two storey existing wintered hive and placing one empty brood
box on each new floor.  One half of the old colony
then goes on top of each.  See diagram below.  The primary use of this
method is for splitting and adding mated queens.  For
cells, the other methods detailed below are usually superior.
 
In the case of a four pack palletized operation, splits can be made on
the ground in front.  Of necessity, the new hives will form
a close spaced row of four in front of the pallet.  In the case that one
hive is not strong enough to split, the other can still be split
with no serious drifting resulting.  The extra hives can later be removed
from the yard and the remaining hives lifted onto the
pallet.
 
It doesn't matter on what kind of day these splits are made, as even if
the bees are flying, they will divide fairly evenly between
the two splits .
 
The queenless half should be given a queen, although, given 21 days, they
will have their own - usually a good one if
populations and stores are good and the weather  is co-operative.  There
are several methods of introducing a queen.  The
most obvious is to simply look for the old queen, then insert a new mated
queen or cell into the queenless half which is right
next to it.  This is slow, frustrating work, unsuited to the scheduling
of a commercial operation.  Another method is to wait until
the fourth day and then look for eggs and add a queen to each queenless
half.  This does leave one split queenless for about a
week, including introduction time.  This brings up the merits of mated
queens versus queen cells, which is another whole topic.
 
The main advantage of side by side splits is that if one is inserting
mated queens, the work of identifying the queenless  half is
simplified greatly.  The other is that this can be done on hot days when
bees could not be transported without a mess.  Extra
hives can be moved out when convenient - possibly by another crew and
truck when yards are available for them.  Splitting can
then proceed more quickly.
The disadvantage is messy looking yards (temporarily).
 
 Two queening can also be accomplished by stacking the splits back up
when the new queen is laying, or some people use a
special manifold box to combine the hives under a single stack of supers.
        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
 
Takeaway splits are splits made where one of the two boxes of an over
wintered hive is removed and taken to another yard
and established as a colony there, whether to fill empty spaces in
another established yard, or to start a new yard.
 
 If done when you are sure the bees have not been flying for several days
(rainy or cool weather), they can even be left in the
same yard without problems.  Bees forget and re-orient after as little as
one day without flight during off-flow periods.  Be
careful with this though, if there are any significant flows on, allow
three days.  During major flows, virtually every bee in the
hive flies and will return to the original stand - this must be true or
the abandonment method of honey pulling simply couldn't
work - and we know it does.
 
The only real problem with the takeaway method is that the second half of
the hive is not readily available for comparison in
queen searches when mated queens are to be used , and requeening is much
slower.  However, it is much neater as far as yard
layout is concerned, is superior in the case where ripe queen cells are
plentiful - plentiful enough to stick one into each half
without searching for queens.  All the lifting and moving  are completed
in one operation, but it may also be slower, because
transport to new yards takes time.  The additional (bottom) brood chamber
may be given to the takeaway half after transport
to the new yard - especially if manual loading is used.
 
If early morning or a rainy day is chosen for the task, or if all hives
in the yard to be split are smoked lightly at the entrance and
repeatedly smoked so that foraging stops, all the bees will all be home
and splits will be fairly even.  However, if a flow is on
and it's warm, and it's later in the day, it will be hard to keep the
bees on the truck until you leave the yard, unless you are
quick, have a good smoker, and have a helper or two.  This type of
splitting is best done when it is cooler, but not cold.  Early
morning is good.  Showery weather is fine too.  The bees are often lazy,
if not always exactly friendly, when the humidity is
high.
 
This method is good where there are enough ripe cells available to stick
one cell into each of  half of all spits without bothering
to look for queens.  One cell is likely wasted, but it usually takes much
more time to find queens than to raise cells.  Moreover
requeening can take place at the time of splitting if cell protectors are
used.
 
The advantages of takeway spits are that the yard layout is not disrupted
and new yards can be started with the splits.
 
The disadvantages are that both halves are not available for reference to
speed queen locating, and that transporting hives
distracts from this method of splitting which must be accomplished within
the first two weeks of May for best results.
 
Side by side and takeway splits are 'quick and dirty', usually work well,
and avoid having to work through brood chambers
frame by frame.  They allow a lot of splitting in a short time with
unskilled and/or clumsy help.    They do not allow the same
flexibility in adjusting feed and brood as progressive splits.  Disease
checks are usually omitted.
 
 
Progressive (Top) Splits are a different approach altogether to
splitting.  Using this method, splitting progresses all spring, and
even into the summer.  There is no rush to complete splitting in Early
May, or even before supers go on.  Hives are worked
through frame by frame.  Requeening, disease checks, changing frames and
other adjustments may suggest themselves to the
beekeeper as he works.  Superior stock can be spotted for potential
breeding selection.  Earlier splits will be producers, later
splits will allow for increase.  All splits must be fed liberally until
they weigh 50kg and are into thirds.
 
Initially, hives are reversed as soon as they are strong enough - bees
covering some bottom bars - and the weather is settled
enough - Late April or May in our area. Reversing is not essential, but
ensures that there is brood in both boxes later.
 
The procedure is to work through the yards, reversing, scraping, feeding,
medicating, and to remove brood and feed from
hives.  Shake just enough bees from each frame to ensure the queen is not
it.  Don't shake so hard you displace the worker
larvae from the bottom of the cells, and don't shake any with a queen
cell if you plan to get a queen out of.
 
A maximum of two or three frames of brood - in various stages of
development - is taken on each trip, and only from hives that
can spare it.  Care must be taken to ensure that too much brood is not
robbed from any one hive.  Indeed, some promising
hives are given brood. However, shake out any really slow hives onto the
ground, no matter how pretty the queen may be and
use the frames and boxes for making more nucs.
 
Be careful during this not to damage brood.  Brood is extremely valuable
and vulnerable.  It chills,  overheats, or dries out very
quickly if left out of the hive in the wind, rain or sun - especially
open brood.  Keep it in a box with a frame of feed fresh from
the hive on each side to keep it warm and sheltered.
 
Doing this work is like open heart surgery.  It can do a world of good,
but the metabolism of the hive is disturbed violently
during the work and for some time after.  Temperature regulation is
temporarily lost and brood rearing is set back a day or
two.  Remember you are working to help the bees - so do things their
way.  Put brood close to other brood in the splits to
share warmth, put the feed on the outside and don't put a warped frame
next to a frame of brood, blocking its emergence.
Preferably take several adjacent frames at a time from a hive and keep
them in their relative positions in the new split.
 
While there are few bees on the frames is an excellent time to scrape off
burr and brace comb.  One thing to keep in mind,
however is that some ladder comb may serve you well.  If your boxes are
not perfect in their dimensions, there may be such a
gap between the bottoms of the frames in the top box and the top bars in
the bottom box that a queen cannot get over easily.
Therefore you may inhibit the queen's travel through the hive by being
too tidy.
 
If the work is going slowly and a flow comes on, the job must be
suspended and  a special quick round of all yards is
necessary to give thirds to strong hives  - with or without an excluder -
to hold them until their turn comes.  If an excluder is not
used, then the third may be used to make up a split later when
convenient, and the hive again returned to a two storeys.
 
As the beekeeper progresses through each yard, surplus brood and feed are
accumulated into brood chamber boxes, each
with a frame feeder, and placed above excluders on the strongest hives.
The brood is arranged in an approximation to normal
hive cluster shape, and feed is placed to the sides.  All the feed frames
in the top splits are from the parent overwintered hives,
not from storage or dead hives, as it has been conditioned by the bees
and the bees will more readily occupy it.
 
Any old feed frames from storage or dead hives, are used in the parent
colonies below which are strong enough to accept
them.  A full range of brood ages should be included, including  one
frame with eggs and open brood, if at all possible.  This
will serve to attract and hold bees when the split is eventually removed.
 
The brood and feed is then  replaced with empty frames, frames of feed,
or foundation as appropriate in each parent hive.  This
is an opportunity to do some constructive beekeeping and brood chamber
maintenance.   Some hives may be honeybound, and
others may be starving in early May.  Medication with tetracycline is
important when inserting new frames.
 
Any foulbrood found may be removed, if serious - especially widespread
scale on a comb.  These combs should either be
flattened in the diseased area with a hive tool and placed in the centre
of a strong hive and medicated, or preferably discarded -
particularly if you are not religious in your medication rounds.  Slight
fresh outbreaks may be medicated and marked for
observation.  Usually they clean up and disappear if adequate medication
is used.  Diseased combs may be accumulated into
special quarantine splits and taken to a nurse yard.  With adequate
populations and medication they will clear up and stay
healthy with only normal preventative medication once clean for a season.
 
We have one inch auger holes on the front of all brood chamber boxes and
find that it is extremely helpful in that the bees orient
well to the hives in spite of different colours, and we don't have to cut
the grass as early in the season.  Hives stay more even in
population as well, because a few strong hives with lots of entrance
activity don't attract bees from weak colonies as much.  It
also is very good for encouraging the bees to occupy and recognize the
split above the excluder.
 
Each split may consist of anywhere from one to eight frames of brood.
Four is best for most purposes.  One frame is not
recommended.  Two, or preferably three will ensure that your efforts are
not wasted.  Small splits are easily damaged by frosts,
robbing, and are generally unviable.  Larger splits will usually produce
considerable honey, especially if   made early and
boosted with a second box of brood and bees when the queen is established.
 
After a yard is finished, there will be some hives with splits on top as
thirds.  We feed all hives syrup, filling all the frame
feeders, unless we plan to move the splits immediately, in which case we
leave the top one mostly empty to avoid spillage.
 
We normally leave the splits on hives for several days, until a batch of
cells is ready - but they can be removed immediately to
have queens or cells inserted, if available.  If you wish to take the
spits away on the same visit as they are made up, then leave
the lids off the splits as you go. This will encourage the bees to come
up.  Careful repeated smoking at the entrance will also
help move bees up into the splits.  The best way, however is to average
three days or so before removing them,  They have the
assistance of the full hive population in getting re-organized.
 
These splits can be used as new colonies by removing them to new yards
and placing them on a floor with an entrance reducer
or they may be used as seconds on previous splits - resulting in
producing colonies.  This gives a lot of flexibility if you are
raising your own cells.  First, the splits can be left on the parent
hives for as much as a week  - if you had eggs in the splits.
After that all the brood will be sealed, and the splits may not hold
their bees well when moved away.  Second, during this time
they can be used either as splits or as boosters.  This allows one to
time the arrival of a batch of cells or queens without leaving
a split queenless for long, and provides an alternate use if cells or
queens are unavailable.
 
The advantages of progressive splits are that they allow ongoing swarm
control all spring, place less stress on the colonies,
allow for general improvement  and equalizing of the colonies, spread the
work out over a longer span and allow splits and cells
to be available at the same time.  Indeed, this method is not dependant
on expensive imported queens, and can accomplish
equal expansion using only locally produced cells.  Swarm or supercedure
cells can be utilised for those who do not raise their
own cells or have a nearby source.
 
We normally do not try to requeen any splits that do not take a queen on
the first try.  We use it as a booster under a good
single box split next to it in the yard.  After the first failure at
requeening, the bees are older, and the split weaker.  Why waste a
queen or a cell on it?  It's better to go out and make more splits with
your resources.
 
'Don't put a first class resource into a second class result' - Peter Drucker
 - It is easy to spend 80% of your time on the 20% of your hives which
never will do well.  I try always to spend my time on
the good hives that show promise and shake out or combine the losers as
soon as they show their colours, so I can get on with
the important stuff..
 
If your split had eggs, even if the queen or cell you put in does not
work, you may well find you have a nice looking laying
queen in three weeks - courtesy the bees themselves.  Sometimes we don't
get back to check.  Usually things work out.
 
If this splitting goes on into June or even July, then you will have
supers on.  This is not a big problem if you have excluders
above the second.  Just strip the supers off the first hive in the yard.
Work on the hive, then place an excluder on and take the
supers from the next hive and place them on top - and so on.  The bees
will merge into the new hive, or go home.  No problem
- after all, we're equalizing.  If you don't use excluders, then unless
you know where the queen is the supers should go onto
their own hive.  Of course, after July 15th, losing or killing queens is
not a concern, as the bees will raise a very nice one
themselves and you will have requeened cheaply.  Bees from eggs laid
after mid-July usually do not contribute to a crop.
 
W. Allen Dick, Beekeeper                        VE6CFK
Rural Route One   Swalwell   Alberta   Canada  T0M 1Y0
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Virtual Art Gallery: http://www.cuug.ab.ca:8001/~dicka
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