Making Spring Splits
Making Spring Splits
Hi I'm David Burns, EAS Certified Master Beekeeper and I worked hard to provide for you an ONLINE COURSE on SPRING MANAGEMENT. Consider taking my course. You can take this course anytime, from the comfort of your home, no traveling just enjoy allowing me to teach you via videos and worksheets. You can pause the videos and start again at your convenience. I'll cover these topics:
-How soon to inspect after winter?
-Feeding solutions in the spring
-How to make a walk away split
-David’s best spring split method
-How to make splits without buying queens
-Swarm prevention techniques
-Split for more hives vs. not splitting for more honey
-Be aware of diseases more common in the spring
-Techniques to equalize hives in the spring
-Replenishing the bee yard with more packages vs nucs?
-How to collect pollen in the spring
-Is it okay to reuse old comb from a hive that perished?
-Tips on Finding Your Queen
-How to Install a new package of bees
-How to inspect your spring hive.
-Seasonal management calendar
-Feeding Solutions for each season
There are several advantages and reasons why you will want to split your hives:
To increase the number of you hives.
To prevent swarming.
To produce nucs.
MAKING SPLITS IN OVERWINTERED HIVES
It is important to realize that splits should only be made from overwintered hives, or what we refer to as second year hives. A first year hive usually will not expand enough to split in their first year.
How early you split your hives will depend upon where you live. Wait until the evening temperature is warm enough so that the transferred brood will not become chilled. It is a gamble for me here in Central Illinois to make splits prior to the month of May. A thoroughly populated hive can keep their brood warm on a cold night but not a small split.
Although there are many variations in making splits let me give you the simplest explanation then I will expand upon the variations.
In its simplest form a split is nothing more than several frames of brood, bees and food sources taken from a strong hive and placed in an empty hive. You might think of it as a controlled swarm.
Take our online Spring Management Course NOW!