🔵How to make a small split! - Package vs Nuc challenge.

hi it's Cayman Reynolds let's make another split with our package versus nuke challenge so just to update you really quick or if you're just now watching our videos we have three packages over there we started on the second day of April that we installed haven't seen our videos these two were having big issues that one still has the original package Queen this one right here went queenless and it took a lot of fruit to get frames of bread from this colony and one of our made it claims that we introduced in another video to help get this colony straight it's still much smaller than these over here but with a little TLC it'll be fine this one the Queen was laying a really pathetic pattern you know in the thing of it is they're all getting the same attention but some of these are just more robust than others and it comes down to good Queens because we treated these colonies as soon as we got them as packages and drop the mic before they started brewing and so might shouldn't be a factor there's no signs of bridge diseases sometimes you just get an inferior queen and that's all it takes to keep your colony from thriving so these two right here are nucleus colonies that we race Queens or September of last year overwinter them as nukes and in the third week of April we stuck five frames of our nukes in each one of these counties and they drew out every comb unlike those so now we've split that one and made that County over there we've just added this empty box we're going to be throwing foundation up in there and getting them to draw it out both of those counties are doing good we'll throw some foundation on here but now let's flip this County right here we have pulled three frames of fruit from it so far but it's still a good healthy colony we're gonna make a different kind of split than we did on that last one if you want to watch that video I'm gonna leave the link up here it's a full deep split just broke the colony right down in half what we're fixing to do on this one it's gonna be a little bit smaller but still healthy definitely works now I said earlier in the years I wasn't gonna use any combs from outside resources but on this foot I'm going to do it one because if you have some it's very useful to know this information might not have me this year but you very well could be in this position next year it's just a different way to split using a smaller population of these sign alright so one thing we don't want it to obviously is take our queen so we need to find her if we can and we are going to make a split as the half the size of the other one I've got this tighten here these frame feeders are really not meant to have nine frames with them but you can do it boy it's hard getting the first bit out all right now that we get this out of here I should have run the manoeuvre all right frameless doors over here likely the Queen's up here in the top but you never know Queens typically like to move upwards and that's why a lot of beekeepers have switched over the decades to using equipment that goes up instead of going long ways that doesn't mean you can't use that type of equipment but you do have to make sure the Queen does not run out of room so this is a frame that we swipe from one of those when we exchange the frame of brood or a frame of theirs and they hadn't completely drawn it out they have really propyl eyes this hive down all right here are some emerging brood I can see these hatching out there's plenty of syrup / honey stores up top there's a small hive beetle on my arm not anymore there's another one all right they've eaten a good bit of the pollen paddy down there I'm seeing a little bit of bee bread the bees are bringing in some pollen I'm pretty sure that the yellow stuff is from corn though which is not very nutritious at all and so just because you breathe bees are bringing in pollen doesn't always necessarily mean that's just a food frame again doesn't necessarily mean that they are healthy you've gotta look at the larvae and make sure there's plenty of royal jelly down in there with those young larvae the less they have the shorter lives they will live okay well the clean very well could be below I'm seeing stuff it's looking more like fruit frames over here all right yeah so we have some really young bees on this frame I'm seeing a bunch of eggs down the cells we've had some Queen cups over here so we're just gonna rip those open and see what's going on a lot of times the bees just have a few hanging around here's another one up here there's nothing in them I'm seeing eggs and stuff over here this is the kind of frame that we want to give them because it takes a lot of work to raise brood so these eggs are gonna take a a maximum amount of work in order to take care of but this would be a good frame to shake into the colony because there's a good chance there's a lot of nurse bees on there keep in mind we pulled a lot of these from this colony we could have long ago made a split have we not been trying to fix those packages over there all right so we've got something over here and on this side we just have tons of larvae I mean it's just everywhere that's what you want to see look in this corner right here see if you can see that with the lighting look how much royal jelly is down in there do you see some royal jelly down in there we got to get that Laurel all right so this would be another good frame to shake but what would be a great frame to necessarily give because the new colony is gonna have to do a lot of work to that let's see what we have down here it should be a lot more brood and this colony again would be a significantly big or how we not pulled those frames of brood those other all right now here's the patties right here for those people that tell you you can't keep patties in small hive beetle country of significant size they just haven't probably tried it the right way all right let's get this out of our way that was a pretty good sized patty at one point uh-huh I just dropped some of it ants will thank me for that later the best defense that you can have in your colony it's just a big set of healthy bees plenty of them healthy bees these that have a lot of mites or viruses don't act the same all right so we got some cap fruit over here a lot of young stuff still looking for the Queen seeing some eggs down in there where bees have emerged out not seeing the Queen which cap stuff on this side so let's go over here that's a good frame of drawn comb but it's not a whole lot to that one oh yeah bunches of eggs down in there that's good but there's no way this county would be brooding this far without that pollen patty it just wouldn't be happening egg over there let's keep going this way and see if we can find it okay there's some more cat food get a bit of larvae over here and some cap stuff this is a lot of this has recently capped you know right now we're just making sure I see what the Queen is and I know a lot of people if they don't stick frames on the ground he'll have that many hands what am I supposed to do with all these things I can't remember if I put them back in so if it's something we're gonna use we're sticking it over here if it's something we're probably not gonna use then we're sticking that over here now we're seeing eggs over here it is a good practice not to stick your queen frame on the ground you will see me do that a lot though all right a lot of good larvae over here well this Queen has been moving around and laying a lot of excess for sure a lot of brood moves around notice how I smoke I'm just basically pushing the bees down I'm really not getting deep into the colony also you know we're doing this fairly quick and so I think that's one of the tricks to not getting stung a lot is one genetics is super important very very important but to just how you handle yourself in the hive a lot more eggs larvae and how quickly you get in and out well we got to be getting closer keep in mind that it takes three and a half days for an egg to hatch so if you're seeing eggs she was there but the Queen can move quite a bit in three and a half days hmm this would be a good frame of brood to give them right here captain older stuff well we just about taking everything out of here usually I find the Queen a little quicker than this I might have overlooked her in sometimes they're on the walls of the boxes I already looked underneath the lid boy is warming up today okay we're back to resources man for brutes this this is a resource frame we're just gonna stick all the way to the left side here I like to keep the honey frames and the pollen frames towards the edges that's where the bees naturally stick them it's a good idea most of the time just keep them where they would place them anyways makes a lot easier on the Queen shouldn't be on this train cause it's all honey but sometimes they will be well probably overlooked there on one of those frames why didn't you tell me if you saw her leave a comment below if you happen to see her on any of the pictures all right so we're just gonna carefully go through these things again and make our split a lot of times I make my splits without locating the clean it's nice if we can find her but most of the time we don't have the time for that sometimes she's back down into a cell so this is a frame of capped brood and there's some older larvae that are getting capped so this is a good frame to use I'm gonna give this one to Dusty he's been helping us out this week just stick that over there keep in mind all these forager bees are gonna fly back I know a lot of you all who watch our videos consistently know this keep one of the most important things about splits and the things that are often overlooked with splits is the fact that there's a lot of bees that are going to drift back to this colony that's good for multiple reasons one because they already have a queen over here so the order bees don't have to worry about accepting this queen but yeah that colony over there since it has a bunch of young bees it's really easy that for them to accept a new queen you don't have any old bee's wine and about the presence of a new one it just makes it a lot easier to get it clean accepted all right this is another frame of Caprica food a lot of times when I miss a clean it's because she's halfway down back into a cell and that is why it is really nice and important to have March Queens that really helps this one has eggs and young larvae and a little bit of cat stuff we're just taking that in and this is a bunch of other young stuff as well not seeing the Queen I'm gonna shake this edge [Laughter] and one thing when we put all this brood back you want to keep that brood together you want to do that in general anyways but especially when you make splits you have less bee coverage and so you need to make sure that it's easier on the bees to be able to cover everything whether it's them overheating in the summer or in the early spring late fall getting to chill that's doesn't have any brood on it all right this right here good frame to shape this is an older comb it's got a lot of divots in it sometimes you got to watch the edges it's one of the kind of the advantages of plastic foundation is that you don't have these big gaps over here and underneath where the Queen's can kind of hide down into there's advantages and disadvantages with both dust and you might shaking that one in for me he's shaking that in let's see what else we can find this is a really good frame to shake right here really good-looking brood I'm not seeing the Queen so this one we're gonna shake this one in as well slap him all right this one right here's foodstuffs for the most part and larvae stick that in here we don't want to take too many bees and I'm fixing to show you a trick here in a second this colony is not quite as large as I hope it would be that doesn't mean a lot we're gonna go ahead and keep that way in there we definitely don't want the imbalance this colony too much or it'll cause problems go ahead and stick that frame in Dustin's you don't mind I'll good larvae oh there's the Queen right there well goodness it's either one her red dot has been wore off her back or they superseded one I don't see any trace of a red dot they very well could have just superseded their clean I don't remember this Queen being that solid of a collar either either way there's the Queen so that's great let's uh get her back down in here were you able to see the Queen well so this kind is gonna need a little bit of TLC but we have our fall flow fixin to come in and typically it's really good I mean you're not gonna make just gobs and gobs of honey off of it but if you have really strong hives that are least good healthy ten frames of beans or more often times that they have the comb to put it in they are going to build up and sock away a lot of natural resources to overwinter on healthily the problem is with a lot of beekeepers they don't have a healthy foraging population because that's typically when the mites are the highest and other issues like that all right let's throw tell you what Dustin back to those frames right there and we're just going to take these in as well a lot of these are forager bees and they're just going to go back I check out this county right here that we're making I'll just swap you how about that ooh back out that one all right now here comes the trick fire we took a lot of bees from this colony right here a lot of bees - this one's emerging brood a lot of emerging brood typically I would give that to that pony but I really don't want this colony to get too weak want to keep them going so I'm gonna throw that together grab me a couple well actually doesn't just fill this up with the rest later combs you don't mind yep and start to in here and then close the lid on that one now let's grab some more bees from a different calling oh yes you can do this a lot of people I tell you can't beat baddies a lot of people say don't mix because they'll fight you can do both of those things but you gotta do in the right way here's our queen right here we marked here with a green dot but there's a lot of these down in there but just because you're seeing all those beads right now it doesn't mean that you know 20 something percent or more of that could definitely leave if that happens and there's not enough to cover the brood the colonies got it then they're gonna lose that brood they got to do all the work of cleaning out that brood they go backwards that this is a bad situation alright so we've already told one frame from this split right here we gave it to one of those bad packages off of this foot that just how well this young splits doing I've got everything Hazzard over here alright we will be putting a frame feeder over here in this right corner there's so many bees on these things I can't how I get to them to grab them use me a lot of times when they're on the frame rest that much you just kind of to wiggle it around just a little bit until they move out of the way so that's really good coverage for those two frames but we really didn't get a lot of older brood in there so I'm going to see if we can find a nice frame of older brood and our split right here all right and then we're going to throw in some combs so you guys can see just how quickly a colony with combs and a split like this with a good Queen and some good feed whether it's from us or nature providing it is going to just explode and this is gonna be a healthy colony by the time our winter gets here now of course if you're much further up north you might need to shake in an extra frame or two or even throw an extra frame of brood whatever it is you've got to know your season so Michael Palmer one of my favorite beekeepers the overwinters nukes up in from northern Vermont so again just like with the pollen patties just like with the feeding with the splits and mixing bees there are ways to do a lot of things but you have to do them the right way bees they have rules that you got to abide by I see what we got here don't want to take this clean either oh wow just good luck on that side if it is on this side that's pretty good over there oh there's the clean right there there's only a couple months old doing a fantastic job and again like I said before is this brute emerges that releases pheromones that attracts the Queen to come over here and lay up the cells as they become available which is a really smart system but check this out look at that bee power right there get down in there all right so the cleans off we are going to take this frame right here and a big frame like this has about 7500 cells so we're probably looking between this side and the other side which is emerging right now so this is the perfect frame to give this county because literally within 24 to 36 hours most of this is going to be hatched out maybe some of the other stuff might be 48 hours out whatever it is every second will hit early this county is going to be getting stronger with young bees that have their whole adult lives ahead of them which is exactly what our split needs on top of that those young gullible nurse bees are easy to introduce a queen to so now we have our split doesn't look all that big we're going to grab one more frame get all this birth home off the top and we'll be sticking a feeder frame over here feeding them we'll be getting a feeder rim and then putting a pollen paddy on this until a fall flow starts good keep in mind like I've said before this split right here doesn't have a lot of foragers and won't have really Annie for quite a while because all the foragers will go back to the original colony so this right here is gonna need some feed until they get old enough to be able to take advantage of what nature provides and right now nature isn't providing a whole lot anyways so what we're gonna do is introduce our Queen right here I'm going to take one of these leaves right here just because it can and I am going to wad it up a little bit and this is bees will tear through a leaf like this real quick I don't like quick releases and that's kind of why I'm a little skeptical using it any other thing but Queen candy I don't I want to make sure that it gets done right I don't want them introduce too quickly now a colony like this if she came out within 24 hours probably great because it's all young bees but if you were to do it to a big colony that's out of balance I like to wait five days and then and then release her not hand release her but like open it up where they can get to the candy so they can't get even the candy they can see her and smell her and take care of her for five days and then I go in make a tour they can eat through the candy and then release her a couple of days later there's a lot of times there's candy they can eat through it in two days I'm not a big fan of poking holes in the candy or anything like that either no reason to rush it at all all right so let's smoke these bees in a little bit Wow Thank You Dustin what wondered where you went to I was thinking man he must have chased him off do Peter Rim right here we'll need to correct that be space over there will scoot all this over and get it oh that's what you did doggone Destin hang on there you go you stick around more often look at all those bees right there look at that long all about B coverage you got to have good beat beverage now you don't have to use frame feeders for sure there's all out a lot of different feeding systems there you go right there we'll be keeping you updated on the progress of this new colony and so right here packaged versus nuke challenge started out with five times we've gone through some adversity with almost losing two packages we're gonna be showing you in the future by in the next couple weeks how well they're rebounding we'll keep you up to date on this one back colony is doing good it's awesome hopefully we can help you all enjoy beekeeping as much as we do always thanks for watching our videos

Channel: Kamon Reynolds - Tennessee's Bees

Views: 44,515

Rating: 4.9234233 out of 5

Keywords: honeybees, Kamon Reynolds, beekeeper, bees, beehive, Tennessee beekeeping, Tennessee beekeepers, swarm, swarm control, queen cup, swarm trapping, how to make a swarm trap, swarm trap, swarmy, giveaway, making honey, Tennessee's Bees, flow, how to keep bees, queens, nectar, queen rearing, beekeeping for beginners, splitting bees, how to split a hive, pollen, pollen patties, pollen sub, Beetle Buster, mite wash, varroa mite, treating bees, varroa easy check, hive

Id: HAkrn3lpZYw

Length: 26min 20sec (1580 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 10 2019