Winter Beekeeping: How to Divide Bee Colonies
by Rob Brooks
Materials Needed:
1) One hive with bees
2) One hive without bees (a hive body with frames, top and bottom
board).
3) Hive tool, smoker, bee veil (if you like).
4) Optional - an extra queen purchased from bee supplier
When:
Okay we are ready to divide our colony so that we will have two
strong colonies instead of one and cause honey and wax production to
double. Look for a warm day in April (and if you are going to requeen
you need her available, also) . We are ready to start.
Colony preparation:
Set your empty hive close by and take out three frames from the
middle and lay them close by. Smoke the colony.
Making the Split:
Assuming we have a two-brood chamber colony, I take off the top box
with frames and bees and set it aside. Next you pull three frames
with brood from the bottom or top box leaving the bees clinging to
it. Check each pulled frame carefully looking for the queen. You can
either leave the old queen with the mother colony or move her with
the three frames of bees to the new colony. Shake an additional three
frames worth of bees into the new colony checking for the queen on
each frame first. Replace the three removed frames from the donor
colony with the three empty frames lying on the ground.
Requeening with a purchased queen:
There are two ways to get a new queen. You can buy one or let the
bees produce one. Let us first talk about introducing a purchased
queen.
I requeen the new colony and leave the old queen with the original
colony but you can do it either way. You can purchase queens for
about 8-15 dollars a piece from various mail order or nearby bee
suppliers. Call your extension agent for names of local bee keepers.
Once you get your queen she will be in a small cage (about 1" x 2").
As soon as you make the split place the caged queen in the colony by
pressing the cage into the comb of the frame (with the open wire side
exposed!) and replacing the frame into the center of the colony.
Leave her caged for three days and then release her. If the bees grab
onto her and form a ball of bees around her (called "balling the
queen") the introduction has not been successful and you need to
rescue her and place her back into the cage. Check the colony again
and make sure that there is no other queen besides her in the colony.
Nine times out of ten you missed the old queen and she is still with
the colony. If you find another queen the bees will not accept the
queen you are trying to introduce and you will need to take her out.
You can either take out your purchased queen or destroy the queen in
the colony that is loose and try the whole process again waiting two
to three days. Requeening is usually quite easy and acceptance rates
are high provided that there are no other queens present. If upon
releasing the queen the bees do not ball her the release is
successful.
Requeening "naturally":
If you give the queenless split a frame with 1-3 day old eggs (eggs
that are standing up) they will take a few of the eggs and produce
queens from them. This is how colonies reproduce naturally when they
swarm. The old queen flies with the swarm; the new queen emerges a
few days afterwards and kills all rivals.
The advantage of buying a queen is you will have a laying queen in
the colony a month sooner than if you let the bees make a new queen.
This means a lot more bees making honey and tending young bees more
quickly for the season. Purchasing a queen also gives you the
opportunity to bring in superior stock and upgrade existing stock.
Moving the colonies:
Once you have made the split it must be moved to a distant location
of at least one mile (preferably three) from the mother colony. If
you do not do this the bees that have been moved to the split will
return to the mother colony and the split will gradually dwindle and
die.
Now you can make splits which are worth $70-$100.00 a piece. This is
just the value of the bees. The equipment that they are housed in
would be extra.
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Did you know that an average honeybee colony will produce between 100-
200 pounds of honey a year? That is about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey
per bee.
Did you know that honey contains local pollens. These pollens in the
honey when ingested act as small doses of antigens that can help
build immunities to pollen allergies. People with pollen allergies
should be eating local honey.
Did you know that fresh honey contains initially almost all
monosaccharides (simple sugars) like fructose and glucose, which as
the honey ages is converted to sucrose (table sugar) through the
action of the enzyme invertase.
--Rob Brooks has a Ph.D. in Entomology and is a specialist in bee
taxonomy and ecology. He is the curator at the Snow Entomological
Museum, University of Kansas. If you have any questions check with
your local beekeepers or extension agents. (Brother Brooks also
writes our Midwest gardening column and is the homeschooling father
of five!
My Family is the greatest gift God has given me, second only to the Salvation provided me by Jesus Christ, God's son.
I love to garden, we have a small garden for vegetables and herbs. A small orchard for growing our own fruit .
I recently retired and am very involved in homeschooling my six grandchildren.
