New(ish) Beekeeper Column
Off the Wahl Beekeeping
Nucleus Hives and Splits
Richard Wahl
All too often, the beginning beekeeper tries a few shortcuts, such as not leaving enough honey for the bees in the new hive over that first Winter or simply is not yet knowledgeable enough to spot problems before it is too late. The determined beginner buys another package and tries again. Since they have invested so much in hive equipment, the urge to keep going is huge. And then there are the few who simply give up or lose interest and try to sell off their nearly new, used equipment. I have to admit, I was one of those who for my first half dozen years was purchasing a new package every year to increase my hive count or replace a hive that did not survive the Winter. I have since found this to be an unnecessary expense by changing my approach a slight bit. Rather than maintaining only one or two hives, I have found it better to stay in the three to six hive range or even a few more. Or as our experienced bee club members recommend, keep a minimum of two to three hives with a nucleus (nuc) resource hive as a backup for each two to three honey producing hives.
The nucleus hive can be used for several purposes. It can be the source of a replacement queen if a primary hive were to lose their queen. A brood frame or two can be removed to strengthen a weaker hive; a drawn comb frame or even a honey filled frame can be removed to supplement a primary hive.
A nucleus hive ready for sale or the removal of a frame to strengthen an existing hive
The process of removing a frame or two can continue until mid-July in my area of SE Michigan where subsequent Winters can get quite cold and unpredictable. At that point, the nuc needs the remaining Summer to be allowed to grow with honey stores to survive the Winter or be married to another hive in its entirety. The weaker queen could be pinched if married to another hive or optimally the nuc is allowed to get strong enough to survive the Winter on its own. In the following Spring, it grows to become its own independent hive or again serves as a resource nuc. Using this method, I have not purchased any new bee packages in the past five or six years. My bees, which are now a cross of several different races, seem to have acclimated to our Michigan seasons and have continually produced as many or more bees and as much or more honey than any of my overwintered previous season package purchases.
Hive Strength for Splits
This begs the question, “When is the best time to do a first split?” Normally, a purchased package will need its first Summer and Fall to build up enough bees and honey supply to get through its first Winter. Once that goal is attained and the overwintered hive is perceived to be strong enough to split, the first Spring nectar flow is a good time to split. If all but one or two frames are covered in bees with three to four that have a preponderance of capped brood and eggs, the hive can most likely be split successfully.
A triple deep hive ready to be split into several nucs or starter deeps
If the goal is to simply increase one’s hive count, the split can be smaller and the ensuing Summer used to build up the strength of the new hive. I once split a ten frame deep into three sections by inserting ¾ inch boards spaced to provide three equal, three frame spaces. I used small wood scraps to close off the notch where the frames sit. I made separate, wide inner covers for each section with screens over the inner cover vent holes. There was no way bees could move from one section to another. Separate entrances were provided on each of the three sides of the super bottom board, also divided into three sections, facilitating bees only coming and going to/from their own entrance. Within a week or two, each of the three frame nucs were moved to five frame nucs, continued to expand into second story five frame supers, overwintered and were ready for sale the next Spring. If the intent is to sell a nuc or two, then most buyers will expect to get a five frame nuc with at least three frames of mostly capped brood, larva and eggs along with the queen that laid those brood/larva/eggs. The other two frames can be a combination of capped honey or nectar and pollen with not more than one frame partially empty or with open drawn comb. Some beekeepers may sell smaller four frame nucs with slightly lesser amounts of bee, brood and larva/eggs, so it is a good idea to be sure you understand what you are getting before you purchase a nuc. Another question that may be of interest is to find out if the queen is marked or not. The nuc seller may be willing to sell their wooden or cardboard nuc or may wish to have it returned after the bees are placed in a hive. All of these factors will play into the cost of the nuc and should be researched and clarified by the purchaser beforehand.
Split Timing
The timing of the newly begun nuc is also a factor. I have successfully started nucs in late Summer, overwintered them and sold them the following Spring at the beginning of the first nectar flow which normally occurs in the last week of April or first week of May here in SE Michigan. I have started nucs as late as the end of the first week in August, and with intensive feeding and monitoring they have made it through the next Winter. As a general rule of thumb, the greatest success with a newly started nuc will come if it is begun before the Fourth of July in my area. So the window to start most successful non-overwintered splits in my area seems to be from the first nectar flow in very late April or early May to the beginning of July. One key factor in monitoring splits is to make sure they have enough adult nurse bees to take care of the new brood that will emerge. Shaking a frame of nurse bees from the parent hive or another strong hive of the same race of bees into the nuc can increase success if it seems there are not as many bees as desired in the nuc.
Naturally, the new nuc will need a queen. There are several ways to accomplish this. One could buy a new queen for the nuc, but to some extent that defeats the goal of becoming a self-sustaining beekeeper. I believe an admirable goal of any hobby beekeeper is to become self-sustaining. The decision to purchase a queen may be based on the desire to get new genetics into the nuc or split off a hive so as to produce gentler bees, a more mite resistant strain or even a better honey producing hive. None of these are guaranteed by simply introducing a new queen regardless of the qualifications of the queen supplier.
Care should be taken if purchasing a new queen to match the race of the existing bees with that of the newly purchased queen. If the race of bees of the existing hive or nuc differs significantly from that of the purchased queen, the new queen may not be as readily accepted by the gaining hive or nuc. I find that moving an overwintered queen to the nuc from the hive that is donating brood frames works well. This allows for the near immediate sale of the split off nuc. The queenless hive is then left with a frame or two of eggs and small larva with some remaining capped brood to make and care for a new queen. This will delay the growth of the parent hive and subsequent honey production for about a month as several cells are chosen for new queen development (sixteen days from egg to emergence), waiting for the mating flights of the new queen (one to two weeks’ time) and for the new queen to begin laying eggs that will take another 21 days to emerge as the new worker force. There is an old saying among beekeepers that, “You can raise bees or collect honey, but it is impossible to do both to the maximum or most efficient manner at the same time.”
Another option is to leave the queen with the existing hive and allow the nuc to produce a new queen. This allows the donating parent hive to recover much more quickly with the new nucleus hive requiring about a month to produce a new laying queen before it would be ready for sale or development into an increase in hives. In addition, many of the donated nuc brood frame bees may have emerged and may need to be replaced with new brood frames from the parent hive before the new nuc queen is consistently laying eggs. Using this method and starting in this manner, my nucs are not ready for sale until the first weeks in June. During that time, I like to use the Boardman jar feeders to help the nuc get off to a strong start. The Boardman feeder makes it easy to monitor the one to one sugar syrup as it is being consumed by the bees during our variable nectar flows. In either case, the brood break that occurs as a result of raising a new queen serves as one of the integrated pest management (IPM) techniques used in the control of mites.
If selling nucs, it is also recommended that a mild mite treatment be applied to the new nuc before sale which may also be a selling point. A single strip of Hopguard applied to the nuc for fourteen days before queen emergence is my preferred nuc mite inhibitor. It should go without saying that whichever choice of queen development is followed, the desired traits of your best hives should be chosen for split increases or further nuc additions. The best nucs for the purchaser tend to be those that were started the previous Summer and have successfully overwintered. An overwintered nucleus hive provides nearly a month head start over the purchase of a package. Nucleus hives started in this manner often grow to two to three story nuc supers containing ten or fifteen total frames. As the queen begins laying new eggs and brood is capped in the Spring, the best frames can be reserved for sale with the five frame nuc while any extra frames are married to other existing hives or used to start additional new nucs.
A single deep ready to be split
Walk Away Splits
A walk away split is one of the easiest ways to increase your hive count. A populous single deep can be divided equally between two starter hives without regard to which half hive or nuc has the queen.
If both halves have egg and small larva, the queenless portion will commence to make a new queen cell or several cells, provided that eggs and small larva are present in each. Naturally, by not providing a new queen for the queenless half, that new starter hive will be about a month behind the other half. This is the one disadvantage to a walk away split. If the desire is to immediately get both splits off to an equal start, then a new queen needs to be purchased and care taken to ensure the purchased queen is added to the queenless half. I once assisted a new beekeeper who had purchased a new queen and was ready to split a strong hive that had two, ten frame deep supers. Carefully looking at each frame, it took quite a bit of time to go through twenty frames of bees to find the existing unmarked queen. She finally showed up on the eighteenth frame. We inspected as we were nearly ready to give up on finding her. If by chance the queenless half starts queen cells on more than one frame, the second frame with a queen cell or two can be removed, placed in a nuc and a few brood frames added from a different strong hive to get a third nuc or hive started. I have had success with this method on more than one occasion, getting three starter hives or nucs out of one split.
A single deep split into two hives with or without queen excluder use
Split Mechanics
The optimal split comes from overwintered hives with two deep supers. An equal number of capped brood and egg/larva frames are moved to the center of each of the new starter supers from donating deep until all egg/larva/capped brood frames are placed. On either side of these brood frames are placed several frames of pollen and nectar/honey as the food source. Any remaining outer frames are of partial pollen or nectar or may even be empty until all frames from the original two deep supers hive have been evenly distributed between the starter hives. It is important to keep any brood frames together in the center of the starter hives since the bees must keep the temperature around the eggs, larva and emerging brood at an optimal state for best survival. A two deep split can be accomplished using a queen excluder, provided there is an upper entrance for the top deep, or the two deeps can be separated as in the illustration. In this manner, a second queen can be added to the queenless deep or the half without a queen can be allowed to raise a new queen, provided there are sufficient eggs and small larva in the queenless deep. This method works best if attempted early in the season when there is a strong nectar flow and greater urge for a hive to swarm.
If splits are done later in the Summer, on warmer days, keeping brood frames together is not nearly as critical a step as when accomplished in late Spring or early Summer when temperatures can still vary greatly during the days and nights. If the beekeeper is only working with a single strong super that they desire to split, the process is the same except that the remaining missing outer frames will need to be filled in with new frames and foundation. Checking the newly split hives in a week or so after the split becomes important as any moved foraging bees will return to the parent hive. It may be necessary to shake a few frames of parent hive bees into the split-off hive to equalize the bee populations. Nurse bees on brood frames are the best to shake into the less populated hive since they have not yet become foragers and will not likely return to the parent hive. If one is using plastic foundation in their frames, I have found the bees begin to build new comb on the new foundation at a faster rate if a coat of melted beeswax is painted on the foundations before inserting them in a hive.
This is also an opportune time to cull older frames from the hive to be replaced with new frames and foundation. The buildup of pupa cocoon material as each new generation of bees develops in their cells, although minuscule-thin, does build up over time. It is therefore recommended to replace used brood frames every four to six years or when the foundation comb has seemed to darken and harden considerably more than other less used frame foundation comb. Drawn comb on foundation is a golden asset to the bees if the beekeeper has empty drawn comb from other hive disease free dead outs or hive combinations from a previous season. Although the exact stated number varies greatly, it has been said that bees must consume around ten pounds of honey to make one pound of wax. I think that one of the main reasons for success in getting my first swarm catch hive through its first Winter was because seven or eight of the mix of frame styles for my first ten-frame deep that I received from a nearby beekeeper contained empty drawn comb.
Benefits of Splits
I have found the main benefit of late Spring splits of a strong overwintered hive to be that it seems to cut down the tendency for swarming. In effect, a split is the same condition created by swarming and acts as an artificial swarm. Last year, I had six of my seven hives successfully come through the previous Winter. I judged all six to be strong enough for splits. In three instances, I moved the overwintered queen into the nuc and they were ready for sale as soon as I saw the queen was laying eggs on frames in the split off nuc. The donating hives were allowed to make new queen cells and raise new queens. In the other three, I left the queens in the donating hives and allowed the nucs to raise a new queen. This meant those nucs were not ready for sale for about a month while waiting for the new queens to emerge, mate and start laying eggs. Splitting all six nucs last year was the first time in my thirteen years of beekeeping that I did not capture a swarm. Although I believe most of my previous swarms were not coming from my own hives, there is no real way to prove this. I have a neighbor about two miles away who minimally treats for mites, if at all, and went into Winter with eleven hives. By early Summer, he was down to two single deep hives. I believe many of my previous swarms were the result of his minimalist approach to hive management when he had larger numbers of hives survive the Winter. So, if you are having frequent swarms and/or wish to increase your hive count whether for sale or your own use, splitting strong overwintered hives into nucs or additional hives may be the answer you have been looking for. As always your split results could vary based on your conditions, environment, experience or state of your donating hives, but give splits a try and have fun with more adventures in beekeeping.
