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Why split a hive? |
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By splitting a hive, of course we actually mean the colony…splitting the hive would be silly. The colony is constantly evolving and expanding in size during the active season. Eventually the colony gets to a size where it feels it has got too large and needs to split – this is when it would naturally swarm. Swarming is its way of reproducing because after a swarm, you are left with two separate colonies (hopefully!). |
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Swarm prevention is important if you want to try and delay this swarming instinct e.g., using new prolific queens and making sure that the colony has enough space inside the hive. However, there is only so far swarm prevention can take you until you get into the realms of swarm control…which is basically reacting to whatever the bees are doing. Swarm control methods include splitting a hive - doing an ‘artificial swarm’. This makes the bees think they have done their swarm and takes away the swarming instinct, so they don’t do it again (fingers crossed). |
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Even if you do not want to expand your apiary, splitting a colony into two successful parts is a good idea because you can always merge them back together at a later date, if you want to. |
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If you do not pre-empt swarming and put in place control methods, you are likely to lose half, if not more, of your bees. In simple terms, if the colony swarms it means the original queen leaves with the foraging bees and what you are left with in the original hive are queen cells, hive bees and brood. Not only have you lost your queen and foraging bees, if multiple queen cells are left in the hive, the new emerging queens may cast, which is just like swarming but with progressively fewer bees. This will leave you with very little, if anything, in the hive. |
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The good news is, you can generally pre-empt this and keep all of your bees! All you need to do is familiarise yourself with typical pre-swarming behaviour and act swiftly. |
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When to split your hive |
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The age-old question! It would be so much easier if there was a set day and time to do this but like anything beekeeping, it depends on the weather and your bees. Normally, a hive can be split in the spring – this usually coincides with a honey flow where the bees are more easily stimulated to grow than at any other time of the year. As an idea, we would do our splits from about mid-April to late June. Splits can be made in the summer but should be avoided late in the season as the bees are less likely to be able to recover from such a manipulation before winter. |
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Typical signs that bees are thinking about swarming: · Lots of bees in the hive – think overcrowding, bearding, not enough space for the queen to lay · Queen cells that are close to being sealed |
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Overcrowding is one of the things the bees are trying to combat by swarming so you may see lots and lots of bees (sometimes we see bearding, where bees ‘spill’ out the front of a hive, resembling a beard). This is good news; not only have you caught the colony before it has swarmed, but you will also be happy that once you have performed the split, both colonies will have enough bees to sustain themselves. Splitting a hive that is not ready to be split is a recipe for failure of not just one, but two colonies. |
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Queen cells that are about to be capped show that the bees are thinking about creating a new queen and demonstrates their desire to swarm. You should act quickly. If you find sealed queen cells, then there is a good chance you may be too late to perform your split. |
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Interesting fact: The queen may stop laying eggs in the few days prior to swarming. Why? To slim down a bit! The workers will stop feeding her so that she can actually get up in the air. If you notice a lack of eggs, along with presence of queen cells (and potentially a much slimmer queen!), it is time to find your queen and hope she hasn’t already left. |
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Tips |
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» Don’t split too early; you not only need enough bees to cover the brood, but the ambient temperature also just needs to be warm enough for the bees to be able to cope with the sudden ‘loss’ of bees. Wait until your bees are showing you that they are congested and that it is going to be nice and warm outside for considerable time. |
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» Leaving more than one queen cell as insurance can be a problem because it often means the first queen to emerge will fly off with a swarm of its own, and so on if you leave several (as mentioned before this is called casting). This is a failure of the swarm control method because you have not managed to control the swarm! |
