Plan Comes Together While Splitting Bees

I decided to tweak my method for splitting bees by incorporating the Stevens Queen Introduction Method into my early splits this year. Everything indeed came together but, as always, it was an adventure. For the first step of the process Brian Lee drove all the way from Birmingham (3+ hours) to help and thanks to him we got a lot of work done that first day. Then a few days later I had to battle rainy weather in the evening time to try and plow through in order to get the second step done. But as always I was amazed when I placed the queen cells into the newly created splits as I watched the bees show interest in what will soon become their queen. Bees are so much fun and they are constantly teaching me new things. There so many ways to do things with bees. Theoretically tweaking my technique in this manner makes a lot of sense to me. What do you think?

#brucesbees #beekeeping #beesarecool

@brucesbees is a beekeeping channel, a vlog of sorts. Here we discuss apis mellifera, aka the honeybee. We give people a look into our sideliner beekeeping operation. We share successes and failures. We show how we feed bees and treat bees for pests, such as varroa mites, small hive beetles and others. I am not a treatment free beekeeper though at one time I thought I wanted to be. We also discus things that are important to us that I think apply to beginning beekeepers and more seasoned beekeepers alike. We also show the beekeeping techniques we use to manage the bees and harvest our honey and sell our honey. We talk about beekeeping equipment and tools. At times we also catch swarms of bees and have even done a few cutouts, though I usually leave that for the professionals. This is not Beekeeping 101, though hopefully the information here is useful. As my good friend @Mike Barry says, this is not a necessarily a "how to" channel. It's a "how I do" channel. I hope you will continue to join us as we continue to perform hive inspections, discuss important matters in the beekeeping world, meet other beekeepers, perform splits, grow our operation and just continue down the path of this wonderful beekeeping adventure. Let's GO!!!

[brucesbees]

Hey everybody FYI. This video covers the process of these splits from start to finish. There are 3 basic steps (all included): Split setup, pulling of splits and queen cell introduction. I could have done 3 separate videos but thought it would be good to put it all together in one. Let me know what you think!

[stonegatefarms]

Hey Hey its my YouTube debut. Haha! Great Video, Bruce! Thanks for having me! I Learned a lot! I plan to split my 6 hives tomorrow using the Steven's method. I hope this method helps with my acceptance level. We'll soon see.

[anthonyc]

Just a tip for Brian. Hold the frames above the box, not in the box when shaking bees.. He will destroy a queen real quick if she runs onto a side wall. You showed the correct method, Bruce. But I was getting queen nightmares.

[derekdavidson]

I’m picking up my first nuc next month for my first hive. I’m nervous but looking forward to give this a shot. This was awesome to watch. Thanks

[vandubay]

Great video Bruce! Glad to see your season is going well so far! We're wide open up here.

[edwardclark]

If you want to find the queen by shaking. Place an excluder on the brood box then place an empty box on that then shake. Just make sure she can't get under the excluder or escape through the empty box.

[GEEZBEEZ]

Nice strong splits. Enjoyed the video. Can’t wait for the results. Thanks. Take care.

[hopesadler]

Great video, Bruce. I'm starting to arrange my splits tomorrow and getting my starter/finisher going. I'm also going to try Gus's flyback split on one colony to experiment.

[bomchickawahwaaaaah]

Great splits Bruce. Looking great. I used a similar method of using a queen excluder to make a split. It works. 👍🏽

[WildwoodsBeekeeping]

Looking good Bruce, Good strong Splits, It's Game on down Here, Just caught a swarm from a 5 Gal Bucket down the road so that Indicates is swarm time for the bees. Good stuff Bruce

[Ashby_Farms_NC]

Fantastic Video showing the full process! Great job!

[waltertchapman]

Great content, I like the method. Couldn't have picked a better guest, Brian is a great guy.

[ssmith]

Awesome video, I love how you take us through the process. Would love to see a video of how many of the splits were successful

[noahG]

Wow that queen is busy! Were just starting to ramp up here in WV. I was able to split doubles and get my Apivar strips, HA fondant and pollen patties in today. 38/40 still alive 90% of them are crazy big for this time of year!

[donbearden]

Bruce, those splits looks great! I would think those Queens should have emerged and going on their mating flights if they haven’t already been on one. I’m glad Brian got to help you because he’s definitely eager to learn.

[melvinyoder]

Great looking splits think ill try corys method looks pretty simple. Thank you for your time you put into the videos

[lagrangebees]

HAH! That drone looked a little agitated after being poked. 🤣
Bruce: Look at that Big Ol' drone!
*Pokes the drone in the face with hive tool* 🔧🐝
The Drone: MY EYES!!!!

[caven]

Great video, I was planning to do splits just like this last month but couldn't find queens available until mid March. 4 out of 6 of our hives haves swarmed already.

[murat]

impresive indeed. look at nice nature You are realy lucky beekeeper.

[macguinn]

Went through mine today. My double deeps were just loaded up. I was able to move several brood frames to a couple hives that wasn't doing so well. If I would have had queen cells I would have made some splits myself.