Beekeeping Tip: Making an Overnight Split with a Queen Excluder

If you are scared to make a split because you are afraid you'll take the queen by accident or that you won't shake enough bees into the split, then this is the video for you. A split with a queen excluder assures that you won't take the queen and assures that enough bees will be in the split to take care of the brood and eggs in the split. Watch this video to learn how this works. I'm filming this on March 7th and 8th - the drones are flying in Atlanta - and the nights are not so cold. I moved this split to a hive that died over winter at my daughter's house. The hive was full of honey and drawn comb so these bees will have a good place to live. The origin hive is a swarm that came from one of my own hives last year. It was a secondary swarm and made its own queen. They were in a nuc hive tower of three boxes over most of last year, and I moved them into a full medium hive at the end of September. They came through the winter just great. The original hive that threw off the swarm is composed of survivor bees from south Georgia that I got from a friend, so all bodes well for this split.