Making Summer Beehive Splits (2024)

Making summer beehive splits is very similar to making spring splits, with a few important differences. Regardless of where you are in the United States, it is ideal to split as early as possible in the summer. Many in the South wait until after they harvest honey (usually by July 4), while northern beekeepers can split in July during the honey flow. As a result, they sacrifice their honey crop, but hives tend to grow more quickly due to the abundant natural nectar and pollen flow. Nationwide, the overwintering success rate for splits after July 4 is about 50% in most cases.

The main goal is to split as early as possible in the summer, thus ensuring more time for the split to grow before winter. To that end, I recommend splitting with a minimum of four frames of brood covered with bees for summer splits. I also recommend using mated queens rather than queen cells for splits, and don’t let the hive raise their own queen. You are in a race against the upcoming winter, and you need the hive to grow as quickly as possible. The most common causes for failure that I see in making splits are letting the hive raise their own queen and not giving a split enough brood to grow quickly. But, if all goes well, you should be able to add a second brood box to the split within four weeks. That second box should be filled within four to six weeks. Continuous feeding is essential in the South. In the North, it will vary based on the area. If bees are not bringing in large amounts of nectar and drawing out new combs, then feeding is needed.

How to Make a Summer Split

1. Select hives that are strong, with a minimum of one deep box full of bees (or its equivalent if using all medium boxes or a top bar hive). Ensure they have at least six deep frames of brood or their equivalent. One medium frame full of brood is equal to two-thirds of a deep frame of brood.
2. Find the queen and set the frame she is on aside until step 5. If you plan to requeen (which I recommend if your queen is one year old or older), kill the queen after finding her. If you cannot find the queen, you have two options. The easiest is to just proceed with the split, ignore the queen, and go back and look at all the hives three to four days after moving the splits to see which hive has eggs. The hives that don’t have eggs need a queen. Wipe out any queen cells they have begun to raise and install a queen. The second option is, after you’ve completed steps 3 and 4 and right before completing step 6, shake all the bees into the bottom box and put a queen excluder on top of the bottom box. The workers will migrate back up through the queen excluder to your split boxes above, while the queen will be trapped in the bottom box.
3. Leave three frames of brood (at a minimum) and ideally two frames of honey in the bottom box. Fill the rest of the space with frames of empty comb, foundation, or frames of honey and pollen. If you have fewer than two frames of honey, you can still split but will need to feed immediately after step 8. Feed up to two gallons per week for the first few weeks.
4. Do the exact same thing for the second deep box. If your hive was already a double-deep hive, this is easy. Simply put four frames of brood and two frames of honey in the second deep. If it was a single-story hive, you will need to bring an extra box and frames to use.f it was a deep and medium, you can leave the medium box on the original hive. You will want to give the split at least four deep frames of brood and ensure the original hive has, between the deep box and medium, the equivalent of four deep frames of brood. If you have more than eight frames of brood, you can add a third box or split with four frames of brood.
5. If you are preserving the old queen, place the frame with the queen in the bottom box.
6. Again, if you aren’t requeening and found the queen, place a queen excluder on top of the original bottom brood box (for deep and medium hives, place the excluder on top of both boxes) and place your new deep split(s) on top of the queen excluder. If you didn’t find or you killed the old queen, no excluder is needed. Just stack all the boxes and splits up.
7. Replace the lid and let the stack of boxes and splits sit until dusk or until dawn the following morning. If you didn’t kill the queen, the hive can be left in this configuration for a few days if needed as you wait for the arrival of new queens.
8. At dusk or right before dawn (I recommend right before dawn because the bees will be calmer), pull the split off the original hive and put it on its own bottom board. Use a minimal amount of smoke to ensure plenty of bees stay in your split. Moving the split a mile or more away will ensure that all the foragers remain with the split since they will reorient to their new location. Since that isn’t practical for most beekeepers (and it’s a real pain!), there are a few alternatives. You can rearrange the whole beeyard so that no hive is where it once was. The foragers tend to drift back to all the hives fairly evenly. My favorite method is moving the original hive or bottom box ten to fifteen feet away and leaving the new split in the original location. The bottom box often has more bees in it, especially if you left the old queen in it. By leaving the new split in the old location, you will ensure that the split has a bit higher bee population. The hive moved with the mother queen or more bees in it doesn’t need as many bees. If you requeened both, you can give one split an extra frame of brood and move that one ten to fifteen feet away.In general, with any movement less than a mile, you won’t lose more than 10% of the bees due to drifting.
9. Feed both hives if there is not a strong natural flow. They have a lot growing to do!
10. Install the new queen ideally within 24 hours. If you wait more than that, you will need to remove any queen cells the bees have begun to raise.
11. Continue feeding 1:1 syrup at approximately one gallon per week until the bottom box is 80% full of bees. When that has been achieved, add your second brood box and continue to feed until they have about 40 pounds of honey or syrup stored. This will take most hives until early to mid-fall to accomplish.
12. Finally, don’t forget to control Varroa mites! They peak in the summer, and infested hives will have difficulty growing. If you are in a major drought or pollen dearth, you may also need to feed pollen substitute to help your splits grow quickly.

For those who thrive on seeing a visual demonstration of a split, in this video I show you how to do the split two ways: Finding the queen for the split and not finding the queen prior to making the split. Both ways are very simple once you see it in action. Check it out!

Video Summary: Making Summer Splits

Summer is an ideal time for beekeepers to manage their hives through a process called hive splitting, which involves dividing an existing colony into two to promote growth and prevent overcrowding. The transcript provides a detailed walkthrough of splitting a hive, focusing on identifying and managing brood frames and locating the queen.

Key Points in Hive Splitting

• Initial Inspection: The hive started as a double deep configuration, promising a robust bee and brood population, crucial for a successful split.
• Frame Evaluation: Brood frames were carefully examined, distinguishing between capped brood, open nectar, and emerging brood.
• Queen Identification: Finding the queen is critical; once located, she is carefully isolated on a brood frame to ensure her safety and facilitate the split.
• Brood and Honey Management: Frames are organized into separate stacks for brood and honey, simplifying the process of allocation to the new split.
• Frame Allocation: At least four frames of brood are ideal for the new split. In this scenario, the beekeeper managed to secure seven frames of brood.
• Queen Excluder Usage: A queen excluder is placed to separate the queen and brood frames in one box, preventing the queen from moving to the honey storage area.
• Rechecking the Setup: Before finalizing, a quick recheck ensures the queen remains on the designated frame and the brood frames are correctly placed.
• Closure and Relocation: The hive is closed, and plans are made to relocate the top box (new split) to a different site for proper establishment.
• Alternative Methods: If the queen is not found initially, a method involving shaking bees off the frames ensures she remains in the bottom box, simplifying the process.

Video Summary: "A Growing Summer Split"

In the detailed transcript, a beekeeper shares insights from a recent experience managing a summer split of a bee hive. The beekeeper focuses on the strategic use of double brood boxes to regulate hive temperature and the efforts to ensure the health and productivity of the newly split hive.

Key Points:

• Hive Splitting:The hive was split three weeks ago into two deep brood boxes to help manage temperature and promote colony expansion.
• Temperature Management:Using two boxes per hive is a method to prevent overheating during the hot summer months.
• Honeycomb Development:The second box was fortunate to already contain some drawn honeycomb, aiding the bees' transition and productivity.
• Nutrition and Pest Management:A patty was added for feeding; it was mostly consumed by the bees, effectively reducing the risk posed by small hive beetles.
• Use of Apogard:Apogard was preferred over bar strips for treating the hive, showing effective results in maintaining hive health.
• Honey Storage:The bees have started storing honey in the second brood box, with significant progress in drawing out new honeycomb.
• Population Inspection:The beekeeper notes the difficulty in assessing hive population during the hot midday and prefers early morning checks for accurate insights.
• Queen Acceptance:Post-split, the biggest concern was whether a new queen was accepted; signs indicated a potentially queenless state but with possible presence of a virgin queen.
• Monitoring and Future Steps:The beekeeper plans to monitor the hive for a few more weeks to confirm the status of the queen and decide on subsequent actions if necessary.

Managing a bee hive post-split involves careful consideration of environmental factors, nutrition, and pest control. The beekeeper's strategic use of double brood boxes and close monitoring of queen acceptance and population health exemplifies proactive management crucial for the successful growth and sustainability of bee colonies during challenging summer conditions.

Filed in: splitting, summer