Splitting a beehive is a vital skill for any apiculturist (beekeeper). However, most amateur beekeepers lack the ability to divide an existing colony in to one or more hives. The hive splitting skill set is important as it can assist in the prevention of swarming or the loss of bees to swarming activity.
Honey bees are likely to swarm as colonies get overcrowded, so it is important to consider trying to split hives as a means of capacity control. Hence, a beekeeper should not Risk a swarm by failing to increase the number of hives under their management if they feel confident in their ability to divide a hive in two as a hive grows.
A hive split should be closely managed for up to three weeks after making the split to see whether more bees or another frame of brood should be added to assist in hive growth. In the warm weather, worker bees usually live just five to six weeks on average depending upon a variety of environmental factors, pesticides, and the time of year, so it is important not to short change hives that have been split of worker bees.
It is equally important to understand when you split a hive you are also splitting the resources of the hive. It is possible with poor management of a split the beekeeper can end up with two hives that collapse. Hence, when splitting a hive be sure to consider providing additional resources such as sugar syrup and pollen. However, if the hive appears vibrant it is skip supplementing food resources.
The utilization of hive splits is an innovative way of controlling hive populations and preventing unwanted swarms. Beekeepers also consider splitting hives to save money, increase beehive numbers, and requeen hives.
During the winter, not all honeybee colonies survive, but those that do often seem to healthier in the new spring season. By generating splits, and possibly exchanging your bees’ genomes with the hives of other beekeepers, the split process can boost the overall number of honeybees, help produce stronger bee populations while assisting beekeepers in colony management and costs.
Stings
Bee stings are a persistent annoyance that are inevitable when keeping bees unless the beekeeper always suits up around their hives. Bee stings are generally painful, but fortunately in most situations home care is all that is required to relieve the discomfort. However, there can be times where there is a more serious reaction that may require emergency care if you are allergic to bee stings or you get stung several times. It must be noted that bee stings are markedly different from insect bites, and the stinging insect venom or toxin is quite different. So, the body’s reaction to a bee sting may vary significantly from one bee species to another.
Reactions from bee stings range from temporary pain and discomfort to a serious allergic reaction. However, it is important to note that not all reactions to bee stings will be the same as you might have experienced before.
People are not the only ones in danger when they receive a bee sting. Honey bees, too, are in peril when they sting a mammal. When a honey bee perceives a threat to its nest, a honeybee will likely sting. But when a bee is away from the hive foraging, the bee will rarely sting unless walked upon or treated roughly. When a bee does sting, the bee itself dies.
The stinger of a honeybee consists of two barbed lancets. The bee is unable to extract the stinger or lancet, so the bee essentially leaves behind its digestive system, muscles, and nerves when it stings. This process kills the stinging honey bee.
Since individual honey bee workers do not reproduce, they ensure their genes are passed down to the next generation by protecting their hive and letting the others take partake in the reproduction process. Hence, their suicidal act of protecting the hive by stinging threats is driven by an evolutionary tendency to protect the species.
Swarming
Swarming happens when a large number of honey bees abandon an existing colony and fly away to create a new colony, producing two out of one in essence. Swarming is a natural propagation process that occurs within the colony generally in response to overcrowding in the hive. Swarming generally occurs in late spring and early summer in the warmer hours of the day.
A few hundred to several thousand worker bees, a few drones, and a queen may comprise honey-bee swarms. Swarming bees briefly fly about and then cluster on a limb, shrub, or another object of a tree. Typically, clusters remain stationary for an hour to a few days, depending on the conditions and the time taken by scouting bees to locate a new nest site. When a good site, such as a hollow tree, is found for the new colony, the cluster breaks up and flies to occupy it.
The colony must replicate, just as individual bees reproduce. Swarming is the replication of a colony of honey bees, and where an established colony splits into two colonies. Swarming is essential for the reproduction of bees. If the hive gets overcrowded, there will be insufficient food, and the health of the colony will degrade. So, a couple of bees will move out every now and then to find a new place to live.
In most cases, honey bee swarms are not particularly harmful. Before swarming, swarming honey bees eat, decreasing their ability to bite. The bees have also abandoned their hive and have no brood to protect or food stocks to defend so they are not aggressive with respect to protecting a home. Swarming bees tend to be docile and are healthy to watch. Of course, you need to steer clear of all bees, swarming or otherwise, if you are allergic to bee stings.
Collecting a swarm and shifting it to a more convenient temporary home is reasonably straightforward for an accomplished beekeeper. Until the bees find a new home and start growing honeycomb it is generally relatively easy to relocate a swarm. When the honey bees find a place to live and go to work to building honeycomb and securing their colony, it will be a bigger struggle to move them.
Popular Honey Bees
Carniolan
Carniolan honey bees are a subspecies of the Western honey bee and considered the second most popular subspecies among beekeepers. The Carniolan bee is one of the most common of honey producing bees. The Carniolan bee is spread throughout the world and is found about everywhere but Antarctica.
Carniolans are considered great pollinators so they are very beneficial to crops. Beekeepers favor the bee due to a relatively gentle temperament and the fact the brood are highly resistant to parasites and diseases. The Carniolans are unique in the sense that they can self-regulate hive numbers to a greater extent than other species based on the availability of pollen and nectar.
Carniolan bees have very long tongues, ranging from 6.5 to 6.7 mm, making them well suited to clovers which is the base of a widely accepted honey. Carniolans also have the ability to build-up hive numbers in an impressive fashion in spring and have an active population throughout the summer. This rapid buildup ability makes them inclined to swarm. These bees prefer to remain close to the hive, which means they are much less susceptible to taking honey from other colonies, minimizing the spread of disease between colonies.
The Carniolan also generally have low bee numbers over winter, forming a tight cluster, whereas the Italian bees typically continue to breed over the winter. In which, there is low use of winter stores by the Carniolan bees, whereas the Italian bees consume considerably more food resources during the winter. Carniolans also exhibit higher levels of hygienic behavior than the Italian bee.
Italian
Italian bees are a very popular bee in the U.S. What is not commonly known by all beekeepers is that there are two strains, one from the North-West Alps and one from northern Italy around Bologna. The bees hailing from the Alps are a bit darker in color and tend to produce more honey than the strain of bees from Bologna that are generally lighter in color.
The Italian bees as a whole have displaced German bees that previous colonists first introduced in America around 1859.
The most common bees to order in packages or nucs in North America are Italian bees, and typically absent is the acknowledgment of the sub-species delivered. As a whole Italian bees are generally considered gentle and relatively decent at honey production, but not as good as the Carniolan bee.
The Italian bee has a few notable issues in that they are more susceptible to diseases, poorer sense of orientation, and are more prone to robbing than other bee races Offsetting the drawbacks is the fact that the Italians tend to be gentle, are prolific, have white honey capping, enter supers with ease, and are generally strong comb builders.
Russian
The Russian honeybee initially resided in the Primorsky Krai region of Russia, where they are mostly proliferating. The Russian honey bees had not been treated for any pests or diseases in that area for over a hundred years. They were considered resistant to Varroa, tracheal mites, and American foulbrood, though at the same time being decent producers of honey with outstanding overwintering properties. Thus, to take action in the critical health of bee colonies caused by parasitic mite infestations, this bee species was introduced into the United States in 1997 by the USDA in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A number of American queen breeders now produce queens for sale mostly in the south and California.
A Russian queen is characterized by a variety of shades, from brown to black. Russian bees will have a slower build-up in the spring season, while the queen will search for pollen to join the hive to begin increasing her brood production. Russian colonies are known to have swarming habits but are less likely to be robbed.
Hive Occupants
The Worker
The largest population inside a honey bee colony consists of the working class. Worker bees are all female, but they do not possess the ability to produce fertilized eggs. In fact, they sometimes lay unfertilized eggs that become male drones if there is no queen.
The worker bee develops in 21 days. On its last day it will begin to clean the cells from where it emerged from. The worker bee will spend their first three days cleaning the cells to ready them for the next batch of eggs for the queen. After three days, its hormones initiate the bee to do its first task, which is feeding the young ones. A worker bee spends nearly a week feeding the larvae with royal jelly, which is considered nutritious, containing proteins, sugars, fats, and vitamins. The precise number of days the worker bee is occupied with this assignment depends on the needs of the hive.
The jobs done by the working class are imperative to the well-being of the hive. They essentially control what goes on in the hive including collecting pollen and nectar, tend to the queen and drones, feed larvae, ventilate the hive, secure the nest, and perform other activities to ensure the colony’s survival. Worker bees have an average life span of about six weeks.
The Queen
Usually, the term queen bee refers to an adult, mated female residing in a hive of honey bees, with fully formed reproductive organs. In the beehive, the queen is known as the mother of the bees, and usually, there is only one of its kind in a hive. Queens are produced from larvae selected by worker bees and specially fed to become sexually mature. The role of the queen is to lay fertilized eggs to produce other bees.
To assist the queen bee in her egg-laying productivity, the bees within the hive work at building out comb and cleaning comb to provide suitable cells for developing bees. Although worker bees’ efforts are not specifically linked to egg-laying, their efforts all relate to the colony’s continued existence. A queen bee during summer months can lay upwards to 2,000 eggs per day. Egg laying is the primary task of the queen bee and consumes her day. The queen’s destiny is not necessarily controlled by herself, but rather the collective colony of worker bees. It is the worker bees who determine her value to the ongoing health of the hive. If for instance, the queen bee is weak and not fulfilling her function of egg laying, the colony will work to produce another queen and may even kill the queen to make way for a more proficient queen to support the ongoing existence of the hive.
While the queen is busy laying eggs, her attendants are busy with hive activities such as cleaning, feeding, comb production, and hive guard duties. Key to the hive survival is also to build up food stores during the spring and summer months to support the growing hive and also be available to survive the winter months.
In normal circumstances, the queen bee emits chemical signals that stop the activity of the ovaries of other female worker bees. But these chemical signals wear off soon after she dies, ensuring worker bees will lay eggs, and the highly effective, closely regulated mechanism breaks down. That’s when it’s time to get the worker bees back to producing a new queen.
The Drone
A drone is a fertile male honey bee whose primary role is to mate with a receptive queen honey bee. There are few drones in a hive, but their role is vital for the survival of the honey bee colony. Unlike a female worker bee, drones do not have stingers, and do not produce wax or gather pollen and nectar for the brood.
Drones are noticeably bigger and bulkier than worker bees. They have large eyes that converge on the top of their heads and have slightly longer antennas than the worker or queen. These kinds of honey bees often originate from unfertilized larvae, and drone cells are noticeably larger than those of workers. The drone is raised mostly in the spring and summer, starting about four weeks before the development of new queens, thereby ensuring that there will be enough drones available to mate with emerging queens.
Drones my live just for a few weeks or may live as long as three months. The drone bee does not feed itself but is dependent upon a nurse worker bee to feed it. The function of the drone is the mating process that happens outside the hive when it mates with a queen bee while in the air. After mating the drone dies. Typically, as the hive moves toward winter the attention paid to drones wanes and the drones actually get the boot from the hive so as to conserve valuable hive resources for others.
Life Span
The composition of hive occupants is split into three categories and is very hierarchical in nature and considered a highly developed and sophisticated society. A bee hive colony can get very crowded and the number of bees in the hive can vary dramatically based on a variety of reasons. The numbers may typically range from 7,000 to 70,000 occupants or even more depending on the season. The composition of the hive is generally as follows:
- A single fertile queen bee
- About 15% of the bees are male drones
- About 85% of the bees are sterile female worker bees
A honey bee’s life span is dependent on its category. The shortest honey bee lifespan involves summer workers, while the queen bee outlives the other two categories.
Inside the hive, the first part of a worker bee’s life is spent working, while the last part is spent seeking food and bringing both pollen and nectar back to the hive. Worker bees also collect water for use on hot days to cool the interior of the nest and for hydration. Water is also used to dilute the honey before feeding larvae with it.
Worker bees also play a significant role in the pollination process. Worker bees gather pollen dust all over their bodies as they land on plants or flowers and use their specially adapted legs to discard the pollen, leaving it on other plants. This process assists nature in establishing healthy and vibrant flowers, grasses, plants, and trees.
It is said that worker bees work themselves to death due to their constant workload. The average worker bee survives just about five or six weeks in summer due to their tremendous and constant workload. Worker bees born in the fall tend to live longer than those born in the summer, as in winter their fat supplies rise and the foraging activities or work load wanes.
As to the queen bee who is responsible for the development and laying of eggs, they usually live two to three years on average, but it is not uncommon for them to live up to five years. Although, domestic queen bees may have shorter life spans due to beekeepers who “re-queen” and actively manage their hives. In the harsh winter months, the queen’s survival depends primarily on how viable her colony is and the ability of the worker bees to control both her and the hives temperature. To ensure that the queen is up to her egg laying mission, the worker bees keep a close watch on her. If she doesn’t lay enough eggs, the workers will begin to create a new queen, a process known as “supersedure,” to replace the old queen. The old queen is either killed or neglected and left to rot away, while the new queen is pampered with food and love. In certain beekeeping activities, after one or two years, the beekeeper replaces the queen.
For a drone, its lifespan is about 55 days but can sometimes reach 90 days before expiring. Drone bees barely survive winter as the working bees are mindful of scarce food resources and cease feeding the drone. Often times a a drone bee is expelled from the hive due to food scarcity causing it to die.
