How Late Can You Split A Beehive - When To Split Beehives Without Losing Winter Strength

In this video, I'm going to talk to you about late season splits and how they're getting on through the winter. Hi, I'm Laurence Edwards from Black Mountain Honey. Welcome to another episode of No Nonsense Beekeeping. When I normally make up my nucleus colonies, I do them at certain stages throughout the year. So I make up a round in May, generally make up a big round of nucs in May. I like to build them up and get them onto doubles, so 6 over 6 configuration gives me the ability to use that brood to make further splits throughout the year. We've spoken though about how late you can make splits into the year, and we followed one through all the way through at the end of August last year on the Making Splits for Winter series. We started that one off with 2 frames of bees and brood in early August. We added a mated queen, we fed them up, and we got them up to size. And that really for me is the cutoff in terms of my advice as to when you should make up nucs for winter. That's a really good ballpark figure. Say the 1st of August, make up your nucs, feed them well. You should get big strong colonies through if you add in a mated queen. So this year was definitely a bit of an anomaly though, and that's what I want to cover on this video because I got left over with quite a few Jolanta queens at the end of the year. Big batch came in, the orders dried up, and I had 30 Jolanta queens that I needed to give homes for. This was in the middle of September, so I made up some nucs. The resources around that time of the year are a little bit slim for me because I'm winding the colonies down, so I made some very speculative splits. I've got 8 of those in this apiary here. I added around 3 frames of bees, maybe 4 frames on some of them, pushing it a little bit. I fed them up well, I added a mated Yolanta queen, and then we got so lucky with the weather. So please don't see this as advice that middle of September you can go and make splits, because it doesn't always work like that. But some of these nucs are actually looking all right. So just to confirm, these aren't the nucs that are for sale, so this isn't another advertising video. These are my own nucs that I've made for my own production colonies. But I just wanted to give you that snapshot of some of the clusters here. It's quite a cold day today, means that I can pop the lid on some of these nucs. I'm up here giving them a little bit of a heft anyway, and because you've got the clear plastic crown board on the page, you can take a look in and see how big they are. I always like to say, and I always like to see on my nucs, I never want to see the surface area at the top of the nuc go down to less than 25%. If I'm seeing a cluster that's less than 25% of the total area of that nuc, I'm a little bit concerned. Not to say they won't get through, but it worries me a bit. I like to see them above 25%, and it does depend on the time of the year. Don't always want to see them at 100%. Good-sized clusters over 50-60% Will and should result in really, really good nucs of bees. But like I say, it's just that reference for me, 25% or under in terms of cluster size of that total area on the top of the nuc. I get a little bit concerned. You'll see on some of these nucs here erring dangerously close to that, and this is because we made the split so late in the year, middle of September, whereas my recommendation would be 6 weeks before that, 2 whole cycles of brood before that, and you can see how quickly the colonies expand. So again, I don't need my bee suit today, even though some of the bees are actually flying in this. You can see one there. Might get another sting to the face to add to the collection. But I just thought it'd be an interesting video to give you that snapshot, to show you just how late you can push it if you get lucky with the weather. So no bee suit, no veil, no smoker. Let's get in, take a look at these nucs, see how big they are. Right, so here's the first one. And like I said, dangerously close to that 25%. You don't know how deep down that cluster goes, but as you can see, you've not really got much in the way of bees over this side, although the Jolanta queens do tend to hide quite deep down in the frames. But you've just got this pocket up here. If I had to estimate that as a percentage— and you can see some coming over here now as well— so I would say we've got 5 frames over 50%. So I'd estimate that one there really around a 30 to 35% mark. It's not an absolute monster, it's not what I normally show you, what I like my bees like, but I've got full confidence that we can get this one through. It's a nice tightly packed cluster, the bees know what they're doing, they're fed up to weight, lots of weight, they're in a nice warm Payne's poly nuc. I reckon we'll get these ones through. So here's the next one here, looking like they're over about 3 frames. And covering maybe 50% of those frames. So again, we're talking in the 30% region in terms of a total area. They do go a little bit deeper down, a little bit of movement there, but again, I'm confident we'll get one that's this size through the winter. I've had it with the Atlanta Queens before. They expand so quick. All you need to make sure is that you get them through. And I know that when it's cold weather, they do like to hide down beneath the frames. So if you were to stand here for a little bit longer, they'd start coming up to the top. But even there, again, we're talking what, 30 to 35%? I'd like to see them bigger, but I'm confident we'll get them through. Now you look at this one here and you immediately think, wow, there is not many bees in there at all. And I've said it before, this isn't as strong as I would like them. You look at that back frame, not even touching it. That is just a frame of stores. But then when they start to come out, they start to move a little bit. This one here is probably over 3 frames of bees again, covering maybe 60 or 70% of those 3 frames. So I think we're still in the region of 30%, maybe lower, maybe 25% surface area on this one. See the bees coming out now to say hello. But if I had to guess, I reckon we'd probably get this one through. Gonna be close, but let's see how we get on. And then the final one, again, it looks like such a small colony of bees. Look at these two frames up here. No bees on them whatsoever. Very little activity in that quadrant. They're all packed over there in that quadrant. And as I've said, 25%— that's my rule. As long as there's a 25% cluster, I hold a little bit of hope for them. If you're seeing like a 10 or 15% cluster, I'm thinking, I don't think we're going to get these through. And I'm talking specifically about poly nucs here. If I was seeing like a 20% cluster in a national Or a national 14x12, you just don't know how deep that's going to go down, and obviously the area is quite considerably bigger. But this one here, I reckon we're going to get this one through. It's a nice tightly packed cluster. You can see the bees. Obviously you've got condensation issues all the places where the bees aren't present because they're not keeping it up to temperature, so therefore it becomes cold. But that's not a major issue. You can see over the cluster, that's not where the condensation is forming. Again, I reckon we're going to get these through. And then the last one doesn't look too good, the last one at all. I can see a small pocket of bees over here, but we're down in the 10% and 15% cluster. You've got a few aimless bees walking around. Never like to see that when it's cold as well. This one here, we've just got that cluster over there. It's a little bit difficult to see with the light, but I would estimate it to be about 15%. This is the one that I'm concerned about. This is the one, if I had to guess, I don't reckon we're going to get it through. So there you go, I've just showed you a handful there. Some good ones, some not so good ones. But I've been proven wrong so many times when you start to assess your bees in December. I've been proven wrong when I say there's no chance that colony is going to get through and they turn into a monster by spring. And also the other way as well, when you look at it and say, oh, they're definitely going to get through, look at them, they're massive. Or within a few weeks or literally a matter of days, they dwindle in size. the spring and they just go immediately. And you do get that, you get like longevity from the winter bees with a failing queen and then they get to this crossover date where they say to the queen, right, go, you need to get new eggs and new larvae into these cells, and the queen just can't do it and all the winter bees die within a week and you just get this collapsed colony. So I've learned not to kind of count my chickens in December, definitely don't do it in December, even January, February, March, April, Like, you need to make sure they get in to crossover day, into April, into May, before you really see and assess whether the colony's got through winter and actually going to progress through the season, as opposed to just getting through and then dwindling away. So I'm not going to say I'm going to get all these colonies through, but I just wanted to give you that snapshot as to, A, how late you can make those splits if you do get the good weather and you use mated queens, but also the difference in size of what those speculative splits, late season splits, look like compared to doing that a little bit earlier in the year. If you go back and have a look at the series Making Splits for Winter, they were made 6 weeks before, and you look at those now, and I'll stick up a little shot of it now, they are packed in. And that's how I find to get really good overwintering success, especially in the nucs, is to not leave any space empty. I want it jam-packed Packed everywhere full of bees. I find you get good success like that. I will make speculative splits though, because if I've got the queen spare, I'll steal a little bit of brood from some of the stronger colonies late on in the season, and I reckon even if I get 50 or 60% of them through, it's worthwhile. Any of these ones that fail here, it's a really, really simple solution that they failed because it's late season, they've not built up strong enough, they've just dwindled away over winter. I can reuse the nucs and there's no harm done at all. Doesn't take long to make up speculative splits. But I just wanted to give you that snapshot, show you how late I've made those splits, show you what they look like in December, and we'll come back and we'll reassess this in say April and look at how big and strong those colonies have come out of winter. And I'll show you the ones that didn't make it as well. If I can get 50%— I made up 30 of these speculative splits— if I can get 15% of those through, turn them into production colonies, I'll be really happy with that. I reckon we can do a little bit better than 50%. So I hope you enjoyed that video. I hope your splits and your speculative splits are doing well. As always, please hit the subscribe button, please hit the bell so you're notified of every video, and I'll see you next time.