During the last Autumn, I placed a small colony of bees which only covered about one frame into a four-frame nucleus box. The bees did not have very long to collect nectar and pollen to complete their winter supplies. I was apprehensive as to whether they would make it through the winter without starving out. Well, here we are in September and those little bees are still flying in and out of that little entrance of that box. Aren’t they so resilient? Amazing bees!
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3 responses to “My Backyard Bees”
Hi sharon! I am planning on re-queening my hive next week basically because I’m not sure where the current queen came from?! She is definitely one that the hive have made themselves at some point. However she doesnt seem to be doing too bad a job and I was wondering, instead of killing her, if I could put her with a few frames (2) of brood and bees into a new hive??
So in other words I would be splitting the hive…
That would leave my current hive with a new queen and probably 4 new undrawn frames???
Hi Gillian, thanks for your enquiry about whether you should split your hive into two separate colonies.
You need to have a really strong colony which has about 6 frames of well covered brood and lots of bees and honey, particularly at this early stage in spring. It would be a bit risky at this stage to split them unless you can give them 2 frames of brood and 2 full frames of honey and lots of bees covering all frames. There also needs to be a plentiful supply of nectar and pollen available in your surroundings and not too long cold weather snaps to restrict the bees flying. Many beekeepers feel uneasy about destroying a laying queen that seems to be doing all right, but overall you will do much better with one strong colony with a young vigorous queen.
A colony with a new young queen will not swarm provided you give them plenty of room, so unless you have a hive absolutely boiling over with bees, I would not split them until, at least, later in the spring.
Thanks sharon!!!
Makes sense!!
Cheers