Splitting the hive video
This is one of the videos showing how Michael and friends split the hive on Monday.
Here is an alternate view:
Michael Mobbs
Michael is a former Environmental Lawyer who is uniquely placed to consult in four main areas:
- Sustainability Coach and Speaker,
- Sustainable Urban Farm Design greening, watering and cooling the cityscape, roads, parks, suburbs,
- Major Projects Consultant Commercial and Industrial,
- Residential Sustainability Consultant.
Terrific to have this exchange; looking forward to your photos and to comparing notes, Mike
Hi Michael. I have found droppings (which are a distinctive black, with a white dot on the end.Somewhat like an explanation mark!!) around the entrance and on the bee platform. We have them everywhere here in Qld. They can take over your house if they are not controlled, so they are a real pest. They are also destroying our native Gheccos. I will try to get a photo of one and send to you. The mesh wire may work as there was no evidence (droppings) near the hives this morning.
Thank you for your reply.
Marjory
Marjory – haven’t heard of this; will double check mine to see; what is the ‘evidence’ you’re seeing from the Asian Gheccos – any photos you can post or email me to put on this blog, please? Mike
I would like some suggestions from anyone out there who may be having the same problem as I am at the moment. I have been finding evidence left by Asian Gheccos, each morning near the front of the bee hives. Think they reckon this is a good, easy ,food supply. I am trying about a 10mm wire mesh around the front of the hives at the moment but may need to be finer than that, to keep the lizards out. It doesn’t seem to be bothering the bees too much, but a finer one may. Will check each morning and hopefully it will work. Is anyone else having problems with these little menaces.
Am open to suggestions on this problem.
Regards
Marjory Williams
Thank you Michael for your response to my enquiry and special thanks to Tim for his helpful reply. My bees are very busy putting a new “nest” together in the front new box, I am able to observe them from time to time by gently lifting the lid. So far they have built up a food supply and various other tunnels but not, as yet, a brood nest, so it looks like I will have a time to wait yet. It is an inerresting experiment though, as long as the bees keep coming through the tube from the back box. This was what I was concerned about. and was hoping the back box would remain active. Thank you again Tim and you ,Michael for passing this on.
Regards
Marjory.
Marjory – Tim Heard has asked me to pass on his answer to your question: “Dear Marjory, Great that you are trying two methods of colony propagation. Congratulations that your first attempt of the splitting method worked so well. It usually does. Although some people find it a little brutal that some food storage pots are broken and some bees may be squashed. The second method, called budding, is softer, but much less reliable and takes a long time. Often the bees never establish a second independent colony in the second box. When you can see brood cels being built in the new box, you know that a queen is active and the bees have successfully founded a new colony. The bees from the original hive will continue to pass through the new box until this occurs. Then you can separate the new box from the old and take it to its new position. John Klumpp describes this process in detail in his book.
Best wishes,
Tim Heard”.
thanks, Tim – good luck
The video were a great help to us when we needed to split two hive of the stingless bees. We split one successfully and both hives are doing well. It was a breeze!! The second one is an experiment with the plastic tube joing the full hive to a ne box. So far the bees are happily building in the new box which I observe from the lid. How long before the bees are etablished with a queen in the new box and will the bees from the full hive continue to us the entrance in the new box until then and the two boxes can be separated. Hoping some one will advise me on this.
Regards
Marjory.
Hi Michael,
Here’s the link to the video on the envirotube youtube channel – http://youtu.be/mvXHnVxx7LY
Cheers
James, your video is short n sweet – thanks so much, Michael
Happy to provide the first video on the page! Thanks for the opportunity to see how the hives are split, gives me confidence to do the same to mine when the time comes…
Cheers, James
On Monday 20 September 2010 Peter Clarke shows us how to split a native bee hive. In January 2009 the hive of native stingless bees (Trigona carbonaria – they live in Queensland and NSW) was purchased from Tim Heard in Queensland and has been in my back yard on top of the chookhouse since – some 20 months. In that time it’s weight increased from 6 kgs to 10 kgs so there’s about 2 to 3 kgs of honey been added in that time.
To find out more about the bees, suppliers such as Tim, visit:
http://www.aussiebee.com.au/honeyproduction.html
Peter Clarke was terrific on the day and showed about 20 of us how easy it is to split a hive. Peter runs the Wild Things program at Ku-ring-gai Council where he shows people how to grow and split bee hives, turn pools into ponds, grow blue tongue lizards and grow native fish in ponds that were pools and, once converted, can be just as clean and fun to swim in as the former pool. A wonderful, inspiring program that, at least as far as bees are concerned, is easily applied to highly populated and densely settled suburbs like inner city Chippendale.
I’ll harvest honey from one of the hives (the hive with the top two compartments) in about a month. I’m giving this hive to the Asylum Seekers Centre in Surry Hills where it will sit in their garden and help increase the productivity of the vegetables and fruit they grow there.
Next year I’ll have two new hives, bringing the hives to a total of four in two years.