How To Split a Beehive Without Finding the Queen

Today's video, I'm going to show you how to make up a nuc or split your beehive without finding the original queen. And I'm not talking about a walkaway split. I'm not talking about splitting boxes and just letting the bees get on with it. I'm going to be adding a mated queen into that split, and I'm going to show you in this video how to guarantee that you don't get the queen into that split without finding her. Now, this video stems from a video that I posted a few weeks back now On how to make 2-frame splits, and the technique that I used was find the original queen, pin her down, shake out loads of bees, couple of frames of brood, add a mated queen, and that's how I would be making my splits. Now, I posted that video on beekeeping techniques, and I had a few people, one person in particular, comment and say, that's a rubbish technique. And you know what, when people comment on videos and say you've not done that right, Or that's a bad technique, or I don't like the way you're doing that. That's fine, and I accept that. But what I absolutely love, and I encourage all the time, is for people to say, "That's a rubbish technique. Here is a better technique for you to use." That, for me, is what beekeeping is all about. So John W. Chesnut, I think that's how you pronounce it. Thanks very much. Love the technique. That's what I'm going to show you in this video here today. So it's a really, really simple technique, and it's using the basis of attracting nurse bees to frames of eggs. You get the bees to move up through the queen excluder to tend to the eggs, and obviously because they're moving up through the queen excluder, you're guaranteeing that no queen can fit through. Right, so let's get the beekeeping suit on, get into these hives here, and show you how to split beehives Without finding the queen. Right, so what we've got here is a brood box full of bees, and I've chosen this colony specifically because look at them. It's cold, it's wet, the bees aren't happy for me to be here. The brood box is full to the brim with bees. My old technique meant I had to go in there every single frame, find the queen, pin the queen down, shake them off. That was the technique I used. This technique is So much less destructive to the colony, so much easier in the long run. So this colony here, brood box full of bees. I know the queen is in there because the queen excluder was on top. All you need to do now is follow the simple steps to make the split without finding the queen. So if you take a queen excluder, I think a wire frame, so like a wooden framed queen excluder works best here because you've got a big colony of bees. You can use a steel one, you can use a plastic one, but this one just gives the bees a little bit of space to move around. And again, I've specifically chosen these bees. These aren't horrible bees. This is just a terrible, terrible day to do this. It's about 8°C and it's drizzly, so it's cold. The bees don't want me doing this to them, and if I was trying to find the queen in this weather, it would be a nightmare. So really good day to demonstrate this technique. So then the next thing you need to do is take a box. Doesn't matter what size box it is, but it needs to be the same size frames as you're going to make your split in. So if you're using a National, Do it with a National box. If you're using Langstroth, Shallows, whatever, make sure the box that you're putting on next matches the same size as the nuc that you're doing. So then the next thing you need to do is get yourself a frame of eggs, and obviously if you take that from a different colony, you need to shake off every single bee. So you're just taking a naked frame of eggs, and you want to place that into the middle of this brood box. Then what you want to do is you want to continue to build your nuc around that single frame of eggs. So if you want to put a couple of frames of capped brood in there, that's absolutely fine. Couple of frames of stores, that's fine. What you need to make sure though is you've got that frame of open brood, preferably eggs, because that's what's going to draw up all of the nurse bees for you to make your splits. So I've got a nice frame of capped brood, I'm going to put that next to the eggs. Another frame of capped brood, I'm going to put that next to the eggs as well. And then if you're doing a 3-frame split, that's it, you're done. I'm going to chuck another couple of frames in there because I want some stores either side as So that's it, that's the split that I'm looking for there. I've got 1 frame of eggs, 2 frames of brood, and then I've got a single frame of open comb as well. And I'm going to add those 4 frames into a nuc that's got 2 frames of stores. So that's how I'm going to make up my 6-frame nuc. And you can see already, look how much the bees are going crazy over all of those frames already. So then what you need to do next is you could just put the roof on if you want, but if you've got some supers, some boxes that are already excluded from that queen, Just pop them on top, 'cause that means you'll attract bees from above down to the brood, and you'll attract bees from below up through the queen excluder. Either way, you're not gonna attract that queen, and whatever remains in this box at the end of it, only after say 5 or 10 minutes, is gonna be completely queen-free. So there you go. That is the manipulation partially complete. The beauty of this manipulation, and this was the point that John was making on Facebook, is that doing that once, Probably not too much of a time saver in terms of making a single split. Doing that 10 times and then coming back and putting them all into the nuc is a real, real time saver because I just don't have to find the queen ever. And I might find the queen on the first frame, it might take me 2 or 3 passes of the colony to actually find that queen using the old technique. So I can go and do this colony, I can do the next one, I can keep on going on, and then I can come back and make all of my splits. Put them back together, and I'll know how long that's going to take me each time. It's very, very predictable, and I can do it at a regular pace as well. So I'm going to give that colony about 5 to 10 minutes. I'm going to go on, do some other nucs, but I'll come back to this colony here, and I'll show you how all of those bees have been attracted from the top boxes that are already excluded from any queens, and the bottom box, they're going to come up through that queen excluder, which means that the queen can't get That box in the middle, our target donor box there with the four frames, is going to be covered in nurse bees and no queens. Right, ten minutes later, I've got my brood box down here. Got a couple of frames of stores that I'm going to use to make up the splits. I'm going to take the bees out of that donor portion of the hive there. Not going to have any queens on it. And there you go. It's as simple as that. No shaking bees. No finding the queen. I've got my 4 frames there. However many frames you put in there is going to be covered in bees. So all I need to do now, take up the frames one by one, put them into my nuc, and that is the split made. They really don't take long. They're straight onto those eggs because they want to protect them. They want to keep them warm. That is their job. And you're just working with the bees to make that happen. So there you go. That's the split complete. I'm going to take that to another apiary now. I like to move my colonies to another apiary And I'm going to go and add a mated queen. So stay tuned to the rest of this video to find out the next steps in how to split your beehive without finding the queen. Right, we've moved the bees to the new apiary, and that's always my procedure. Move them to the new apiary means that you don't need to balance the bees. You can do it in the same apiary, and I'm going to follow this up later in the year, which is how to split your beehive in the same apiary. It's a little bit different, slightly more difficult, But for the purpose of this video, I always think just get them to another apiary around 3 miles, 5 kilometers away, makes it so much easier. So for the next step, there's 2 ways to go about this, and I know some people don't like the way that I do it. So I split these bees about an hour ago, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to put the queen in the cage now. I leave it for 7 days, and then I unpop the cage after taking down the queen cells to make it hopelessly queenless. Now you can rewind that procedure, so these are 1 hour after I made the split. You can leave them for 7 days, they will create queen cells, knock down all of the queen cells, and then they're hopelessly queenless. Then you can add the queen in the cage and pop the cap straight away. It's exactly the same procedure, all I'm doing is I'm storing the queen in a cage in the beehive for 1 week, and I do appreciate some people don't like to do that, For the reasons that I've discussed before. However, that is my procedure and I've never lost one single queen like that, so that's the way I'm going to show you today. If you don't want to do it that way though, follow the procedure exactly the same, just don't put the queen in, don't order the queen until you get the colony into a hopelessly queenless position. They accept queens so easily once they're hopelessly queenless, in fact it's pretty much guaranteed. So as you can see, we've got a nice colony of bees here. They're either 1 or 2 frames of brood, some empty drawn comb, and then some stores as well. Loads of bees. They're not gonna fly back to the original hive 'cause that's miles away. I'm just gonna add this queen in horizontally so the fondant doesn't melt on them. Keep the tab closed, and I'll come back in 7 days and knock down all of the queen cells. So I've got 10 nucs here. I'm gonna do it for all 10 nucs. We'll fast forward a week and I'll come back and I'll show you again the queens in the cages, Hopefully still alive. All the queen cells will knock them down, and then I'll show you how we get these queens accepted. Right, so we're back checking the splits after one week. The other thing I want to say at this point is that we now stock F1 Buckfast queens and Gelanta queens from Murray McGregor, who is the biggest UK bee farmer managing in excess of 5,000 colonies. We've got a fresh new batch of Buckfast queens every single week, and we're sending them special delivery to. Anywhere in the UK. So if you want to support this channel, if you want to support me, please feel free to order queens via the website www.blackmountainhoney.co.uk. Right, let's get on with the manipulation then. So what we're expecting to see today is the queen still in the cage, not dead but still sealed up. We're going to go through the frames of brood and we're going to expect them to see emergency queen cells there. All we're going to do, go through every single frame, shake the bees off, Knock down all of the emergency queen cells, open the tab back up, and then we're going to leave it for at least 48 hours. I'm going to come back in a week though because I just get around to this apiary once a week, but you'll see it. We'll follow it through all the way until the end of this video, and then what I'm going to do in this video as well is I'm going to show you a couple of cycles of brood on there as well, at least one cycle of brood, just show you how quickly these colonies expand. So this video we're showing you everything from making the splits, Waiting for them to go hopelessly queenless, knocking down the queen cells, getting the queen accepted, getting her laying eggs, and then getting her to build the colony up to full strength. So make sure you stay tuned to the end of the video to see what these colonies look like at the end. Right, let's get inside then, take a look at these colonies. So as expected, nice strong colony in here. Remember, we only made a 2-frame split here and we got about 2 frames worth of bees, so that's about what we'd expect to see. They're going to expand really quickly like these colonies do. The queens go very, very quick. The weather's good, they're going to be bringing in pollen, they're going to lay those eggs, they're going to really expand at a fast rate. So outside frame is empty. It's not been a good week here, they've consumed a lot of their stores, but it's not the end of the world. There's good weather on the horizon and there's enough stores in here to keep them going. So I've got one frame of empty drawn comb, I've got one nice frame of pollen that I'm going to move closer to the center so the, the young eggs and larvae have got some I've got one slightly misshapen frame that the bees will sort out. It's got a little bit of nectar in it. I've got one frame of brood with a nice hole in it, and I've got emergency cells on this frame. I've got one really nice frame of stores, capped stores, and then lots of open nectar on there as well. So there's no need to feed these. They've got plenty of stores, and the weather's really good for the next couple of weeks. And then finally, I've just got another empty frame of stores as well. So just a frame of drawn comb. So you can see this is a little split here. You don't need to go and make 6-frame splits. This one here actually only has one single frame of brood, couple of frames of stores, and then just some frames of drawn comb. And I'm going to show you, and this is why I say make sure you watch until the end of this video, watch how quickly this colony expands. I'll show you, I'll split it down week by week, and I'll show you how quickly they go. 2 rounds of brood, this will be a full box of bees. So what we need to do now is we need to shake off all the frames that have had brood on them. So in this colony here, it's just a single frame. I'm going to shake it off and I'm going to show you the emergency cells now. So it's interesting because when you make splits with, say, 6 or 7 frames of brood and then you make them queenless like that, they draw out loads of emergency cells. And the bees kind of know how many to draw really, because it's dependent on the number of bees that are in here. This is a really small split. So they've only created one emergency cell. There's one that might be a bit of drone brood as well. I'm not 100% sure what it is. I'll be taking both of them down. All you need to do though, go through every single frame, even the ones that you don't think had brood on them, shake them all off, go over them top to bottom, kill any emergency cells. Be very thorough. If you complete that step, you'll get really good introduction on your queens. Right, so that's it. This colony is now hopelessly queenless. So now I've been through, I'm going to go and check on my queen, check that she's still okay in the cage. So there we go, there's my cage, there's my queen in there. As you can see, really nice big long mated queen. This is one of the queens that we sell through our website blackmountainhoney.co.uk, F1 Buckfast, really good quality queens. What you can also see there is that the tab isn't closed, so that queen has been in there for a week, And the tab has been sealed. And all I'm going to do now is I'm going to open that tab. So the tab is now opened. The bees have got access to get in there, eat that fondant, and they will release that queen with a slow introduction. So I can take that queen in the cage now with the tab off, place it in between 2 frames of brood, or if you've not got 2 frames of brood, in between a frame of brood and your frame of pollen. That's probably where I'd put it. And you want to wedge it in horizontally just so the fondant doesn't drip on the queen. This is what it should look like now, wedged in between those 2 frames there. The bees are all clustering down at the bottom where I've shaken them off. That's what you want it to look like. And that's it, it's as simple as that. So we're going to stick the roof back on. I'm going to go around and do the rest of the nucs now. We'll fast forward into this video into next week and I'll give you an update and I'll show you the queen has been released, she's still there, she's still alive, and I'll show you some of the eggs that she's laid. Right, so we're back on with our splits then. We've We're going to check in now a week later to see whether the queen's been released, to see how much progress they've made in a week. So here is what the nuc is looking like after a week. A little bit of growth, it's good now, it's up to about 4 frames of bees, and hopefully we're going to go in there, we're going to find that queen running around the frames laying eggs.

All of that brood now, the original brood, should have emerged. That's why you're seeing growth after a week. So let's get in there, see if we can find that queen, see if we can see some eggs. And there we have it. We have a successfully introduced F1 Buckfast queen, and isn't she a beauty? Look at that. She's a big, really well-mated queen. Lovely color to her. You can see just how long her abdomen is.

That's a sign that it's a quality queen and that she's really, really well-mated.

What you can also see is that she is laying that up into every single cell that she can. So got lots of nice pollen in there as well.

And you look down into the cells and you can see all of these eggs.

So that's it, we've got a successfully introduced queen.

Easy if you follow those steps. You need to get them to the point where they're hopelessly queenless and you get a successful introduction every single time.

So fast forward a week or so, I'm going to show you how quick this colony grows. She's in there now, the queen, she's laying eggs. We're going to get it to one cycle of brood, and once that brood has emerged, this box will be full.

So already on 4 frames of bees.

It's so quick at this time of the year. The queens are turbocharged because of all the good stuff coming in, loads of nectar, really nice temperatures.

They lay up the frames like it's going out of fashion.

Fast forward 1 week and I'll show you just how big this colony has become. Right, so 1 week later, we're going to do the final part of the video now. I'm going to show you how quickly that small 2-frame split has turned into a full nuc of bees. The expansion on these nucs is super, super quick. So get inside, I'll show you how many bees are in the box now. So there you go, this is what the colony looks like after 1 week. It's not overflowing, but that is on a full 5 or 6 frames of bees. I'll pull some frames out now and I'll show you how well that queen is laying. But as you can see from this colony as well, really, really nice temperament, not flying up at all. Nice, gentle, calm bees. So here we go, this is what we're talking about. Check out the brood pattern on this frame, it's really, really nice. She's done a great job of laying into pretty much every single cell on this frame. It's about 3 frames of brood in there, maybe 3 and a half frames. They do go crazy at this year when they lay them up. The flows are on, they stimulate the queen to lay as much as she possibly can, and the result is amazing brood like this. So there's our queen, she's doing the business for us. As you can see, lots of eggs in all those cells. Just going to go over here now, you can see all the larvae, she's packing it in nice and tight.