Beehaus Up & Buzzing

In May 2018, with 3 weeks of great sunny weather, I set-up my Beehaus (external link to Beehaus), dragged it up the farmer’s field and installed bees. Exciting times.

Before The Beehaus

Two 14×12 colonies, back to back, lots of bees.

After

Installing Bees Into Beehaus

Key points:

Turned the two 14×12 wooden hives 90 degrees and moved them 1m away (see photo above)
Allowed flying bees to enter the Beehaus
Unable to find the Queens in my busy 14×12 wooden hives, I made two simple splits, making sure eggs in all 4 colonies (2 colonies in the Beehaus)
Both 14×12 hives had brought in loads of nectar

Result

No idea where the Queens are but all should be OK.

One Week Later

Left wooden hive – Found Queen (and eggs, brood, stores), marked her and walked her in to the left side of Beehaus
Right wooden hive – Found 7 Queen cells (but no eggs) and removed 5. I left 2 queen cells right next to each other, so hopefully first Queen out will kill the other rather than creating additional swarms (both queen cells looked a bit on small side, so I wasn’t confident to kill them both)
Beehaus – No eggs and no queen cells (and hence walked in the Queen from left wooden hive). Put newspaper between 2 sides of the Beehaus in order to combine
I added supers to all hives as they had continued to pile in the stores despite a cold start to the Spring

Further One Week Later

Beehaus – The bees in Beehaus had accepted the Queen and combined
Beehaus – I saw Queen in left side of Beehaus, moved any frames with brood into left side of Beehaus and added QE so that Queen stays in left. In 30 days I will close right entrance and put blocker between left and right so that I have spare hive for a swarm
I added the Beehaus entrance narrowers – “wasp” setting – as the number of flying bees is decreasing as they die off
Left wooden hive – Found 5 Queen cells and removed 4 leaving 1 large Queen cell
The left wooden hive had drawn most frames in super and filled half (uncapped) – so I added additional super
I did not disturb the right wooden hive as it may have virgin Queen now
None of the colonies bringing in much pollen

Lessons Learnt

Add supers by end April – even if think it has been cold
Queen from split hive can be walked back into her old colony one week later and accepted

Plan

Not expecting swarms for next few weeks
It’s 17C and rainy for the next week … so just as I want good weather for queen mating the weather is not conducive
All colonies – I will leave for 2-3 weeks to inspect for eggs
Beehaus – in 4 weeks, seal and close right hand side so that this is a spare hive for swarms

Detailed notes in My Apiary
My Beehaus Review
Beehaus (external link to their website to read about all features)

It was like a scene from E.T. as Pete and I headed up the quiet estate on the back of an old Land Rover in our white (bee) suits with a radioactive device (beehive). Children were called inside and curtains were drawn.

Even before we started we were resigned to the fact that finding a Queen was as likely as finding alien life. So we split Pete’s hive and placed six frames of eggs, brood and bees into my hive body.

When we got to my “apiary” of two empty hives we decided to split the frames further so I would have three frames in each brood box. I then added frames with foundation to each hive and fed them with 1:1 sugar solution.

Unknowns

I may, or may not, have the Queen
My new colonies may, or may, not raise emergency Queens
I may, or may not, have two functioning hives

Unknown unknowns

Probably

Challenges

Pete uses a standard national brood body whilst I use 14×12’s. I am expecting a lot of wild comb below the frames I inserted which is likely to make inspections more difficult. The plan is to shuffle these three frames to the side and remove them over the coming months. Any advice on the speed and timing of this much appreciated?

Final Thanks To Pete

Thanks for the bees, having a plan, spotting eggs and for lifting the hive body (it was really heavy; I have felt the need to write about this under Manliness Already Under Scrutiny). And thanks for the lettuces.

If in three weeks time, I have no Queen or eggs and the lettuces are dead … you might realise I am in need of more fundamental support?

How-To Split A Hive
If you want to get started and don’t want to buy a nucleus/package of bees, then you might want to read my how-to’s on Catching A Swarm and Hiving A Swarm. Please note my disclaimer on the How-To main page which clarifies “I am not Britain’s leading beekeeper or teacher …”.

Tag: splitting hives