Splitting Hives with Mated Queens

Hiya, we're commercial beekeepers from New Zealand, with a few hives of our own as a hobby. We bought some new queens for our hives, and today we were out requeening and making new hives

[@DarthPeachy]

Awesome video Rae, way better than any of Phils videos! 😝🤣 Seriously though was interesting to watch and I enjoyed it so I hope you'll do more 😀

[@ghostchips5188]

@DarthPeachy thanks, mate. that's the plan. It's been the plan to record beekeeping, and we've finally gotten around to it. Only taken us a couple of years... 😆 🤣

[@DarthPeachy]

@@ghostchips5188 well its been worth the wait, youve gotten started now so dont stop 😉

[@Manuherikiabeekeeping]

Hi north islanders from central Otago southern New Zealand 👋😃 nice to see kiwi beekeepers getting into KZbin 😁 its requeening time down here too, willows flowering and pollen is streaming in the doors😃 weve had a bit of a rough start with a massive snow storm down here 🥶😂 but things are coming right. I noticed you aren't sure about AFB, so ill harp on about a bit, because south islanders know everything 😂 AFB is kinda both, its caused by the endo-spore forming bacteria "paenibacillis larvae" and part of its propogation strategy is to produce spore like structures, like a mushroom, which is why its so infectious and they can remain vaiable for forty years. It's seriously bad news, im a strong proponent of the current strategy of destruction because in every country they use antibiotics, AFB rapidly gains resistance resulting in massive outbreaks. Areas that allowed antibiotics are returning to notification and destruction of the colony's affected such as Ontario, which allows antibiotics for preventative treatment but notification and destruction if AFB is confirmed. Personally I agree with burning, its heart breaking to do but you protect your other colony's and those of neighbouring beekeepers. Its fairly rare in NZ as a result which is awesome 👍 great video 👍👋

[@Manuherikiabeekeeping]

Oh, lol, BTW those queen cages are awesome 👍 I got sent budget ones from a breeder in chch and they suck😂 whoever packaged those queens did a great job, who did you get them from? I might buy a couple 😁

[@ghostchips5188]

@Manuherikiabeekeeping We got them from SJA Honey. They're based around Silverdale, in Auckland. We bought a few 5-frame nucs from them last spring, and they did really well, so decided to get some over-wintered queens so that we knew we had good stock for the upcoming season 😊 We just did an AFB Refresher course a couple of months ago; there's so much to learn, and most of it gets forgotten too quickly. I prefer the elimination strategy as well, even though it's heartbreaking

[@Manuherikiabeekeeping]

@@ghostchips5188 that's epic, thanks for that, I'll definitely check SJA Honey out for some queens👍 yeah, nuking hives affected by AFB is totally gutting but I'm convinced it keeps the number of spread events in check. You guys might want to brace yourselves for a bit of a weather hammering we just got slammed again and it's supposed to snow tonight down here 🥶 I think spring has taken off to the pub for a bit and handed winter the keys 😅👋

[@ghostchips5188]

@@Manuherikiabeekeeping we've been happy with them so far. I can believe that winter is refusing to hand over the wheel to spring. The nights have still been pretty chilly up here 😂

[@phossilphil4201]

In my defense, we hadn't fully planned how we were going to structure the video, and as a result I had a huge mind blank. Hopefully we'll get another video out next time we work our hives