👑 Getting Split Ready
We are big fans of the OTS (mdasplitter.com) method of rearing queens and splitting a hive. We typically do it in the Spring to help keep swarming down and in Mid-Summer to help knock the mites back and produce fresh queens for next year's Spring build-up. The reason we like it so much is its ease, lack of specialized equipment, and it doesn't require a ton of bee resources. We are a small operation with goals of maintaining six hives: 4 for honey production and 2 support hives for unforeseen, but inevitable situations. So grafting a slew of cells, starter/finisher hives, and mating nucs are not appealing. Plus the lack of fine motor skills put a serious kabash on transferring larvae to a cup. The head beekeeper is not feeling it either, she wants to make honey not bees, so the process just works well for us. We wrote up an OTS Schedule and a process that's in a Google Doc (Gee's Bees OTS Procedure) , but some highlights: Ease It doesn't get much easier than remo...