Ken Record and splitting

I spoke to three club members this past Saturday who intend to split at least one of their hives. You know how to split a hive, you take bees from one hive and place them into another empty hive. Well, I did know a little bit more than that simplistic definition prior to last
Saturdays club meeting, but not too much.

Prior to the meeting I asked Ken if it might be a little early for
splitting hives and he replied “yes,  a little”.  I have heard rumor that Ken Record has made seven hives from one, and I will probably be revising this post to correct that number to a higher amount after I hear from other club members or Ken. Of course, success in a
split is the primary goal, and at Saturdays bee club meeting, Ken Record filled our heads with many factors that play a role in the successful splitting of our honey bee colonies.

Ken loves to experiment with his bees and is always ready to learn something new from them.  He is a clever and self admitted frugal Mainer who prefers to make due with a good idea and what he has at hand.

Prior to taking us outside to split one of his hives, Ken spoke on the subject of grafting queens. He showed examples of the equipment required, both modern and old,  and the techniques he has used.

The sun had come out in the bee yard and Ken was running out of things to say…. not really,  but we did all go outside to watch Ken
and his son, Gerald, work with the bees.

Ken was going to split his hive by adding a queen that he had grafted. He mentioned that swarm cells produce an exceptional queen as well and if you have swarm cells available, use them for your split. If the timing is right, you can prevent your one hive from swarming while creating a strong new hive. By removing honey, brood and swarm cells and replacing with drawn out empty comb, the old queen will have more room and fewer new queens coming her way and will be less likely to swarm.  The excess brood, honey and swarm cells are the key ingredients for the new hive. Make sure the nurse bees make the trip to their new home as well. They will need to care for that brood until it hatches. If you are keeping an eye on the timing of your brood cells, you may be able to transfer just prior to, or as they are hatching. That will mean less work for the nurse bees.

If you are inserting a new queen into your new hive, Ken explains, you can choose a queen that shows the most likelihood for success. The royal jelly is visible in the queen cups.

I wonder if he used his paperclip to create these queens? I am not sure if the bees can smell the queens in the cups, but they know what a queen cup is and they are very interested.

The 2013 queen color was red, and the mark that Ken had given her can be clearly seen here. The 2014 queen color is green.

This one year old queen will be staying with her hive and will have more room and more work now that Ken has removed frames of her brood for the new queen and hive.

The process is a little bit time consuming, especially as a demonstration. The hives had been open long enough for the bees to let me know as more than one bounced off my forehead.  Sometimes, even with smoke, the bees get tired of us and need to get back to their work routine.

Paul and Wally look cold on a warm day, but I think they were actually just taking a step back from the action and I certainly did not blame them.  Hives look even bigger when you leave them open for a while.

Ken had it all back together and loaded on his red truck.  One hive more than he came with. Where is he putting them all?

Thanks to Ken for this demonstration and also to Gerald Record for all his help setting up and assisting.

Note: If you click on any of the photos, they will enlarge.