maddydog
Drone Bee
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2013
- Messages
- 1,257
- Reaction score
- 159
- Location
- north staffordshire
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 150+ nucs and hives
HI all,
I‘ve got a single colony at 3 different sites so I'm looking to split each colony for 6 in total.
Two of the colonies are in cedar nationals (with full height 50mm kingspan cozies). Both contain 6-7 seams of bees when i oxalic dribbled at the beginning of jan. The other is a 14*12 poly nuc with 6 seams. All 3 were strong nucs from last summer with prolific queens.
My thoughts are to double brood the nationals and then split adjusting my method depending on what swarming evidence i see. A couple of questions:
1) I've got some nektapol to help with spring build up. What would be a reasonable date, mid to end of feb?
2) When the poly nuc is full would it be possible/sensible to split it into 2 poly nucs? Alternatively i have a full-sized 14*12 i can move them onto first and then split later. My plan is to introduce bought mated queens into the 3 splits.
Cheers
I‘ve got a single colony at 3 different sites so I'm looking to split each colony for 6 in total.
Two of the colonies are in cedar nationals (with full height 50mm kingspan cozies). Both contain 6-7 seams of bees when i oxalic dribbled at the beginning of jan. The other is a 14*12 poly nuc with 6 seams. All 3 were strong nucs from last summer with prolific queens.
My thoughts are to double brood the nationals and then split adjusting my method depending on what swarming evidence i see. A couple of questions:
1) I've got some nektapol to help with spring build up. What would be a reasonable date, mid to end of feb?
2) When the poly nuc is full would it be possible/sensible to split it into 2 poly nucs? Alternatively i have a full-sized 14*12 i can move them onto first and then split later. My plan is to introduce bought mated queens into the 3 splits.
Cheers