There are a number of reasons for making splits and a number of ways of making them. The main reasons for making splits are:
There are many ways to make splits, but most ways are variations on the following:
The time of year and size of the splits will determine how much honey the splits will make in the first year, if any. It will also determine whether they will be trouble free or a waste of time, effort and bees. Generally the earlier and the larger the split, the more they will produce and the easier they will be to manage, assuming that pollen and nectar are available in the field at time of splitting. A minimum of six weeks before a target flow is considered minimum lead time.
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 almost overnight.
This 'exploding' happens 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. Figure about three weeks after the first warm spell (80 degree F days and 40 degree F nights) when pollen is available that there will be a large hatch. This is because the queen will lay strongly and the bees will feed a lot of brood during the warm spell. All that worker brood begins hatching 21 days later.
Brood must be available in all stages in both brood 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 72 degree day there are not bees covering the bottoms of at least six frames, the hive is not ready to split.
Reversing: This is advisable only if there are bees covering at least several bottom bars, indicating some brood in the lower box. This is a general guide-line and some latitude may be appropriate, depending on date and climate. We keep bees in Southern Alberta, Canada. Apple trees bloom May 15th here, and early May is our best splitting time. We may have occasional frost right into June, although May 24th is generally considered the time to safely plant a garden.
Reversing ensures brood will be raised in both boxes and expands the brood area - particularly with older queens, which are less inclined to lay throughout the hive . 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 too early in the season, hives that are not covering combs in both boxes because a very real danger of damage to the brood and colony exists if the weather is at all cool.
I am no longer recommending reversing in most cases. One thing that keeps queens from going down is the excessive scraping of top and bottom bars. The gap that results discourages the queen from going down and since we have stopped scraping the ladder comb from these wooden parts, we have less burr comb (sideways between frames), and have less need to reverse.
The first two types of splits are best done in mid-May. In our country (Central Alberta) splits made before May 24th seem to produce as well or better than other similar colonies which are not split, provided that the hives are good and strong when split (See feeding protein supplement).
We almost 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 (unless we split a bit later and super, i.e. for comb honey). This way, the extra space is below, and does not cause much 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 kg + 10 kg for boxes and combs, 2-4 kg for bees, 5 kg 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. Interestingly enough, our ideal weight going into winter is only 10 or 15 kg heavier -- 60 kg, measured in October.
Side by side splits
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. 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.
We also have found that simply placing a floor on the ground beside each of the hives on the pallet and splitting onto it -- while leaving the one half on the original stand -- works just fine. This reduces the lifting and the splits can be removed to another location later, on a cool day when they are not flying much.
It doesn't matter on what kind of day these splits are actually made because even if the bees are flying, they will divide fairly evenly between the halves of the splits .
The queenless half should be given a queen, although, given 14 days, they will have their own - usually a pretty good one if there are eggs in the split, populations and stores are good and the weather is co-operative. (Around swarming season this method works well).
This method can work very well with the right timing and conditions, under the hand of an observant beekeeper.
There are several recommended methods of introducing a queen to the new splits:
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 and excluder.
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, either to fill empty spaces in another established yard, or to start a new yard.
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 (in a cell protector) 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 or any convenient time within days after if cell protectors are used. If the hives start their own cells, they do not have to be torn down, and they offer back-up in case the cell introduced by the beekeeper is defective.
You can tell if your cell worked because the queen will be laying in 11 days. If your cell malfunctioned, then a queen should be obviously laying in 21 days. That ten day difference is a huge difference in the spring when you are trying to build up for a flow. It is half a generation.
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
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. Scraping excess burr comb, 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. We are assuming hives here have been overwintered in two standard Langstroth brood boxes.
This form of splitting can be accomplished while working through yards and doing other spring tasks. Only the hives strongest in bees and brood contribute to splits. Some equalizing (giving brood and bees to weaker hives) may be done, but in my experience, it is almost always a waste of time, brood and bees.
On the first round, hives have not yet been reversed, but there are usually some ready for splitting. Here's how it goes:
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