Run-Away Split

MABA's August speaker, Sam Comfort, shared novel beekeeping and queen rearing practices with the club.   I was spellbound by Sam's life story and accomplishments including:

• inexpensive construction - $0.80 hive box using rough sawmill lumber and bamboo skewer as a top bar
  
• the demanding rhythm of Sam's calendar-driven queen-rearing business by grafting
• SARE grant - emergency queen rearing using Run-Away Splits, Sam's variation on Walk-Away Splits
  

In the absence of a queen, 1) open brood pheromone (versus capped brood) helps retain worker bees in both queen rearing methods (split or grafting) and 2) that new comb is desirable in the Run-Away Split method.

NCSU report compared Sam's 32 mated emergency queens to their database of all tested queens and graded Sam's emergency queens as A- (high reproductive potential).  This dis-spelled my bias that emergency queens mate poorly.

spring 2013 weather outlook

NOAA announced that "2012 was warmest and second most extreme year on record for the contiguous U.S."   Looking forward, NOAA forecasts the Atlanta spring 2013 with above normal temperatures and normal rainfall.  

On warm days, I see bees foraging for water, mahonia, rosemary and winter blooming cherry (too difficult to catch on camera).  The bee cozies are still on, but not for too much longer.  I am lucky, all three hives are still alive - I plan to spring split the strongest hives in an attempt to control swarming and create another hive.

one of two splits achieves a mated queen

From the parent hives I removed eggs, capped worker brood, pollen and bees and one of two splits achieves a mated queen.  Not bad for a new-bee, but I have to credit the favorable spring weather and drones from local hives.   Here's a summary of what went on with the two splits.

April 6th (day 20) with help from a visiting friend, Ray Karsch, we move the splits which have been sitting on top of their parent hive with the same entrance orientation.  Without a cinch strap we gently stack both splits onto the same hive stand.  Each split has their own deep division board feeder and the bottom split has a counting board to keep them warm.  The top split is taking syrup while the bottom split is not.  April 12th (day 26), bees return to the top split with pollen, while no pollen is found on the counting board of the bottom split.  April 6th (day 30), I simply combine splits into a two deep box configuration.  I'm convinced that one split contains a mated queen based on pollen foraging and syrup consumption.
 
April 23rd, I discover all the bees in the lower box, so I squeeze the resources into one deep box with a division board feeder.  May 1st, I remove the deep division board feeder.  Next I add a medium box with one frame of capped honey (bait frame from parent hive) and seven medium frames with wax strips.  Above the inner cover I invert a one gallon pail and remove the counting board.

making spring splits

I split all (two) of my hives this spring (March 17th).  I chose four adjacent frames from the bottom box of each parent hive which contained eggs, worker brood or pollen.  Next, I added three adjacent frames with wax strips.  Last, I added a 3 quart division board feeder as insurance.  In the parent hive, I checker-boarded the missing four frames with frames with wax strips.  Each split was placed on top of their parent hive and in the same orientation as the parent hive.  From the hive defensiveness, I presume that there is no major nectar flow.

On day fourteen (March 30th), I quickly checked beneath the inner cover of both splits.  The dawn temperature was 59 °F and some reassuring warm moist escaped from beneath the inner cover.  Both splits have a nice cluster of bees over several frames.  One split consumed one cup of syrup and the other split consumed two quarts of syrup.  So far, all seems well.

two swarms on back-to-back days.

Like my previous swarm experiences, these 2011 swarms took off at around 1PM, and the swarm departure excitement lasted only a few minutes. This is the first year that I have seen two swarms from the same hive on back-to-back days.

Assuming that each swarm carries away 73% of the parent hive workforce.  Then after two swarms, I'm left with just 7% of the original parent hive workforce. In hindsight, perhaps I should have split this hive, but despite two swarms, this hive is still the most flight vigorous of my two hives. Both swarms spent the night high in a tree and then vanished the next day.  Too bad the swarms did not choose my swarm traps as their new home.