And Then There Were Two

Springtime brings a burst of new life to the garden, and the beehive is not exempt from the exuberance of nature.  Having seen several swarm cells in the making, we decided it was worth our effort to attempt splitting our hive - instead of risking the loss of a large part of the colony in a swarm situation.  A 'swarm' cell is a queen cell formed (like it sounds) in preparation for the natural process of swarming.  They're located, facing downwards, along the edge of the comb - an indicator that the hive is feeling that it needs to expand in response to growing numbers, or the increased availability of food sources.  They want to move, but they're preparing properly.  An 'emergency' cell is a queen cell that is formed around an existing young egg that is 3 or fewer days old, and therefore still capable of becoming a queen.  These cells normally protrude out of the face of the regular brood comb, to provide more room for the larger queen developing within.  These cells normally indicate that something is wrong with the hive or the existing queen - or perhaps that she has been killed. The colony reacts to the loss of her pheromones and attempts to make a replacement.

The trick here, is to convince the growing colony that there has been a swarm, leaving space for expansion and a queen still in charge - they can essentially continue on about their business.  This is achieved by removing the new queen cells, and placing them, along with attached nurse and worker bees, into a new hive body along with stores of honey and pollen - it's called an 'artificial swarm.'  The additional trick here is to leave the original queen in the original hive body, which can be nerve-wracking when you cannot find her!

At this point, my research indicated to move the original hive away from it's location, and replace it with the new, smaller colony hive body.  Foraging workers will return  to the location that they left from originally, and should help to ensure that there are enough foraging bees going out to gather more stores to bring back to the new colony as it adjusts to its new home.  The original hive 'should' have plenty of workers, and some will become replacement foragers and orient on their new location on the way out - so that they return to that location. Of course, there's always the crossed-finger hope that the bees will cooperate.

Knowing that we were getting close to the time where swarming might become a possibility (queens take 16 days from the time they are laid until they emerge), I headed off to Rona, where the nice guys in the lumber yard made a bunch of cuts for me.  The fellow who helped us with supplies for the chicken tractor, and who cut some top bars to size for me last year remembered me.

I picked up some 2x12 spruce boards, some 5/8 inch exterior grade plywood, and a piece of pine shelving....doesn't everyone do building projects in their gazebo?

The shelving board is what we use to build the follower boards (the boards that define the left and right boundaries of the colony in the hive body).  Each follower board is attached to a top bar for placement in the hive.

The hive body is built out of 2x12 boards to fit the follower boards (ahem, at least that's the intent - the final product isn't perfect here, but the bees don't seem to mind).

We attach screening to the bottom of the hive body, for ventilation, and prepare an additional board from plywood to attach in the winter to help maintain the interior temperature (see hinge attachment at the bottom of the picture).

Paint the inside of the hive with linseed oil, or a linseed/beeswax mix - I was in a time crunch, and was adding existing, familiar comb, so I used the linseed oil on its own.  The linseed is a preservative for the wood, and a few drops of lemon grass oil can be added to the hive body to encourage the bees to feel at home.

The plywood top (with salvaged 1x4 edges) was painted with exterior paint to protect it from pooling rain, and the whole shebang was moved into place and leveled.

Prior to moving day, I did an inspection of the original colony, marking the location of swarm cells and those bars that contained mostly honey and pollen - it made it easier to pull what was needed for the transfer once we started swapping things about, and meant less stress all at once for the bees.  My mother looked on, unconcerned, from a few feet away while we completed the split as quickly as possible. We were impressed with her curiosity.

Here, the bars with newly-laid queens, and one older queen cell showing royal jelly have been moved into the new frame.  My hope was that the first queen to emerge would simply kill off her younger rivals and assert her control of the hive. There are frames of food on either side, and several empty bars for expansion. The followers are to either side of the new colony - with the screws visible.  The original move was just 9 bars, but within 3 days I added a couple of extra top bars for expansion, as the foragers continued to return to the original hive site and swell the numbers.

We need to do a full inspection of each hive this weekend, weather permitting, to make sure that there is evidence of a laying queen in each, and then I need to have an official government inspection of the hives...

before our whole household makes a move - to Front Porch Farm.