1. Tom Pankonen Honey Pimp Apiaries
Splits!
Tom Pankonen
Honey Pimp Apiaries

2. Agenda
Who
Why
When
How

3. Who? ANYONE! Ask for help from a mentor if your not comfortable New
Experienced
Ask for help from a mentor if your not comfortable

4. Why? Chemical free mite treatment Prevent swarming Increases
Emergency backup plan
Replace failing queens
Replace a rolled queen
Laying worker
Solstice queens

5. When? Blackjack rule, see two queens ALWAYS SPLIT!
You find an extra queen cruising around
Queen cells
When the hive is strong and running out of room for brood
During a nectar flow

6. How? Walk away split Requeen Queen cells
On the spot queen rearing method

7. Walk away split
Pull the second brood box off and set it on another bottom board
Make sure there are egg in each box
The bees will make a new queen
Keep in mind this will make you broodless for about 2-3 weeks
Check boxes in two weeks for queen cells / queen / queen sign

8. Requeen Take a few frames of mature dark brood (2-3)
Frame of wet nectar / honey and pollen
No queen!
Let sit for a day
If your not confident in spotting the queen let it sit 3-4 days and make sure there are no eggs. Maybe check both the original and the split for good measure.
Add queen cage
Check for eggs in a week

9. Queen cells Take the frame / frames with queen cells
Take a frame or two of mature capped dark brood
Frame of wet honey and pollen
NO QUEEN
Check for queen sign in 2 weeks maybe 3-4 if the weathers bad
Keep in mind brood can come from multiple hives so you don’t stunt them too bad

10. On the spot queen rearing
When you have a strong hive, split taking the queen, two frames of dark brood, wet frame of nectar / honey and pollen
At the same time notch on or more frames where you have YOUNG larvae
Take your hive tool and smash in the bottom of a few cells on two spots for good measure
They will draw queen cells
In 6-8 days take the frame with queen cells and follow the queen cell split directions
If you make two frame splits make sure its warm especially at night and they will build slower then 3 frame splits

11. Other notes
Don’t forget to always take a nuc with frames every time you inspect that way your ready if you find cells
ALWAYS replace frames in both the NUC and hive or they will make a mess of brood comb
FEED SPLITS!
Your success will be MUCH better on a nectar flow
It’s possible to do this during the dearth feeding aggressively
Utilize nucs for drawing comb and making brood for additional nucs if you want to make increases
Nucs will fill VERY fast during a strong flow especially in a few days when bees start emerging

12. More notes
Be patient on queen mating! Sometimes your good in a few days sometimes it takes weeks especially if the weather sucks
Make sure you have purple eyed pupae or ideally mature drones before starting this
Queens are cheap, bees are expensive
Solstice queens are great for requeening weak hives