Guilfordbeekeepers.org

Hi, is it too late to make a couple of splits? If I can find a queen I can introduce her or let the split make one.

My issue is a get a hive or two running and one generally dies - probably from overuse of pesticides as I live in a residential neighborhood.

I lose a perfectly strong high quickly.

Thanks for the newbie question and answer.

In my opinion, you are too late to count on getting your own bees to make a queen, get her well mated, and build up for over wintering. You are just about too late to be able to buy mated queens, but some may still be available. I am thinking more about winter preparations now than about trying to make splits. This is more in the direction of getting mite treatments done, seeing if there are queen issues following treatments, and combining queenless or weak hives into stronger ones. I have had reasonable success over wintering nucs (3-5frame mediums) with a good queen, about 5-8 medium frames for brood rearing, and 5-7 frames of honey and pollen above them. These nucs can be the basis for expanding as hives in late winter or a resource to in winter to give a queen to a hive that goes queenless for some reason.

While some other disease/issue may lead to a strong hive going downhill quickly in winter, the most common cause is failure to get varroa under control in time to allow a good population of healthy winter bees to emerge and carry the hive through winter.