When is it too early to split a hive
When Is It Too late In The Season to Split A Beehive?
[Music]
hello bearded Beattyville
welcome back to being KB's so as you may
know because of all of the split videos
well I guess all of them I think I've
only done one first day of July splits I
planned on doing a bunch of videos and
forgot my tripod but so because of the
split video that I just put out you know
that I'm making splits and you know that
it's mid July and a question that I get
asked a lot especially this time of year
is how late is too late to be making the
split and that's a difficult question to
answer with a you know one-line answer
you need to know a lot more like what
kinds of split you want to be making and
what kind of eventual situation you want
that split to be in going into winter so
we are making this is our last round of
splits here in mid-july and these are
with Queen cells if I do make any more
splits at all throughout the rest of the
year it will be with mated Queens but my
general line of thinking is I want each
hive to have about two months six weeks
to two months of laying queen flight
action before cluster time before the
bees are deciding it's time to start you
know acting like winter bees and
clustering at night and all that so my
mark for that is the beginning of
October because we never know what's
gonna happen here in Michigan in October
we can get just real frigid weather it
could be you know flight weather the
whole month but you just definitely
cannot plan on that so I want to have
all of August and all of September with
a lady mated and laying queen and I want
them to have flight time throughout all
of that in order to probably think and
gather stores and have the ability to
put up the syrup that I'm gonna give
them to make them
appropriate winter weight so my idea is
in terms of making a split with a queen
cell or a walkaway split early July is
about as earlier early to mid July is
about as late as as you should go with
that in my opinion and then if you're
going to push it a little bit further
late July early August is about as late
as I would do it with a mated Queen
because once again I want them to have
about two months to really really seal
everything off and make sure that
everything is a you know good looking
good for winter and so it takes them
some time also to take in the syrup that
I give them and dehydrate that enough so
it doesn't turn into booze and all that
kind of stuff so you can definitely
definitely get into trouble trying to
push this envelope and go late in the
year so as it goes later into the year
we're pulling stronger and stronger
splits we did do those thin splits on
the angry hives like a week or ten days
ago and those may or may not need a
frame of brood before the end of this
month in order to be able to have enough
bees to take care of the eggs that that
queen is going to lay but regardless of
those splits the splits we're doing now
this week are five frame minimum and
we're talking four frames of solid
sheets of brood so that once again when
the Queen comes back from her mating
flight there's more than enough nurse
bees and more than enough resources to
be able to take care of everything that
she wants to do because these young
Queens not having gone through a spring
build-up really likes to lay up a large
nest through and you know up until the
the beginning of October so what we like
to do is make sure that they have enough
bees to make sure that they can rear a
large nest throughout those last two
months of the be here and then kind of
shrink that nest in on you know to a
more appropriate October size while I'm
putting the winter syrup on
so they're gonna really really brewed up
in August and September and then on in
October I am going to put a bucket of
syrup over top of them or late September
and that syrup is kind of going to
shrink that brood nest as those bees
emerge it's gonna shrink and shrink and
shrink and they're gonna backfill that
whole area and then these 10 frame
singles that'll go into winter are just
gonna be heavy as heck every single
frame in the box that's going to be
heavy as heck and there are going to be
tons and tons of young winter bees
because of these young Queens that had
the latter portion of the year to brood
up so let me know if you have any
questions that might have been a lot of
information in a quick little video but
once again my idea is I like to have two
months of mated laying clean and two
months of flight time before October so
this is about the last time I will be
doing anything without a mated Queen and
if I make any splits later than mid-july
it will be what they made it Queen so
get out there and get your splits done
if you still haven't done your increases
in your in this geographical area
because our time is ticking down so as
you see here I did one two three four
five six seven eight nine splits and
this yard today I still have that pallet
there and then that pallet there to go
through it was so hot earlier and I was
drenched in sweat and I had forgotten
anything to drink but I felt like I said
a pass out so I had to leave earlier go
get something to drink and cool off and
so now I'm back not to do that work I'm
gonna do that tomorrow but I am back to
pick these what's up to bring them back
to the Queen yard so that when I have
Queen cells ready for them all I have to
do is walk it out of the door and place
them in these hives so just to show you
what I mean by strong splits we're doing
five framer
five frames in the box but three you're
covered with bees five frames of bees be
covered frames so for she to brood one
frame of food and then these singles
it's even more than that I believe that
one has seven and that one might have
eight with at least five sheets of brood
and a bunch of food those are heavy
already so once again they're gonna have
the resources available to take care of
anything all those eggs and stuff that
that that Queen puts in there not stuff
it's just eggs all those eggs that turn
into larvae and are gonna need food
they're gonna have enough bees and
enough food to take care of that and by
October 1st I imagine these boxes are
gonna be just jam-packed full of bees
and super super heavy so let me know if
you have any questions like I said I
think that that was a lot of information
in a real quick video but it's an
important topic and one that you can
really really shoot yourself in the foot
if you don't you know pay attention to
it because we don't as humans we aren't
necessarily thinking about winter in
July mid July it's it's hot it's like 94
degrees right now but these bees are and
they need a lot of things to be set
right in order for me to feel good about
them going into winter so that's why
this is our last round of split so
thanks for watching get out there and
have some fun with your beads see ya
