Sunday, April 1, 2012

First Split

It wasn't easy, but we got it done. The top and medium came off the hive ok, but the top deep frames were really stuck to the bottom deep frames. We ended up setting them on the ground and tipping them on their side. They finally came apart. I never spotted the queen. I don't know which hive she ended up in.

I ended up putting four frames from the bottom deep and four new frames (sprayed with sugar water) in the deep of the eight frame hive. I put the small opening of the entrance reducer in the opening, and put a telescoping top on top of an inner cover. I have the board out of the screened bottom board.

I put four new frames (sprayed with sugar water) into the bottom deep of the 10-frame. I left all ten frames in the top deep and the medium on the ten-frame.

So now I've got an eight frame deep with four frames of brood and pollen and honey (and maybe the queen) in an eight-frame deep, and a ten-frame (and maybe the queen) with two deeps and a medium. I'll continue to feed them as much as they'll take and hope for the best.

We had to stop several times as it was very hot and humid. We had the truck parked in the shade about 30 yards from the hive. Once I had sweat in my eyes really badly, so I walked over to the truck to take my veil off and wipe my eyes. As soon as I had the veil off, I got stung in the eyelid. I guess they were really mad about us tearing their house apart. Later on when we were done, we were even farther away putting the stuff into the shed, and there was a bee chasing me around there.

I'm sure a lot of this will get easier as I do it more. But is sure was an effort today to get things done. But now I've got two hives! 

No comments:

Post a Comment