Last summer (July 2022) our first PEI hive (nuc from Canoe Cove Honey) did extremely well and grew beyond our expectations.
Considering this, and how well it did over its first winter, we were excited to "Split" the hive. Splitting a hive is basically taking the two full boxes of a hive and "splitting" it by adding one bee-less box to each full one. The queen bee will remain in one of the hives and the bees in the hive without a queen, should rear a queen from one of the already laid eggs. There's a bit more to it than that so I hope I've been clear. (Nature is so amazing and bees are incredibly impressive and complex little creatures).
Split the hives May 20, 2023.
Take a look at what we had to work with..... :)
We checked the hives June 11, 2023 and the one with the existing queen is doing very well. However, the other doesn't show any signs of a new queen. We asked a local beekeeper for some help and he said not to fret, the split may still be successful, just give it some more time.
You can see below there's bee activity but not as much as we had thought there would be. Looking through the hive was still a learning experience and we took some pretty neat pictures as well.
Check out the comb structure of the third picture! So cool! And the "bee bridge" in the first picture. :)
Thanks for reading our blog and email us at info@upbackfarms.ca or message us on our socials if you have any questions or comments. More to come on our second split hive in the coming weeks.... #splittinghives #honeybees
June 25 - Update on splitting our hives.
On June 17 we checked our hives....... I'll start with the good news, the parent hive is thriving and we added honey supers. Fingers crossed for #buckwheathoney later this season.
The bad news, the second hive failed to produce a queen bee and it currently remains queenless. But all is not lost, we will be introducing a live queen and some capped brood from the parent beehive and together, the hive will slowly grow.
In addition to this, we will be getting another nuc from www.canoecovehoney.com in July to start our third hive.
Thanks and we will continue with beehive updates as they happen.
Natural beauty at is best!