Splitting The Girls

Over the past few weeks we have been watching the weather for the right time to split the colony and even with the chance of rain today was the time. Earlier in the week the dandy lions started come out and that is a good sign and the girls have been busy, the front of the hive is a bit yellow with pollen. Today we split the hive into three colony's, which went well. With all the pictures ReBecca took we were able to confirm the Queen was there and did get moved to an other colony. There was a lot to do, I moved into each super, four frames from the existing supers, all had honey, pollen, capped brood and other stages of development, along with four new frames for them to draw out and get started with. This should be successful, and in a few weeks we'll add a Queen excluder and then the honey supers for us, then wait for the fall to see how they did.

You can see the pollen on the front.

Busy even at the rear of the hive.

Under side of the inner cover.

The Queen is still with us.

Below the inner cover.

Carefully removing a frame.

Talking it out slowly.

Checking it out and looking for the Queen.

Still looking.

Lots of capped brood.

They'll build comb anywhere, bee space is important.

Lots of new bees.

You can see new ones chewing their way out.

Never stop bring in the pollen.

Lots of pollen to bring in.

Bee Yard Prep Work

Over the past few weeks we have given the "Girls" about 18 liters of sugar syrup, some with medication to help them come out of the winter and as previously mentioned, protein patties. When I added the patties, I thought they would be too thick to put just between the supers so I added a spacer, and inexperience showed, because when we removed the spacer they drew down comb and the queen did her job. This is not where we want the brood to be so this bit of comb had to be removed, to set the super back on top. They weren't very happy.

They have been very busy collecting pollen, as we can clearly see the pollen baskets are full, this is a very good sign. We started to prep the bee yard, clearing away old brush, around and an area behind the hive. This will give us future space to expand, if needed. As well I laid two more pads for when we split this one. It maybe ambitious but they are very strong, so we'll see about truing this one into three. There will be lots for them to gather as there are 6 acres just out their door and several other fields, larger less then a km away. We'll see how it goes throughout the summer.

The hive with the spacer, very active, nice day.

What I had to remove after the spacer came off.

Still busy collecting pollen.

You can see the different colour pollen in their baskets.

Getting ready to split.