Lesson 78: Making Splits

Turning one colony into two: more colonies, less swarming, and spare queens

A split (also called a divide or making a nuc) means taking bees, brood and food from a strong colony to start a new one. It's the cheapest way to increase your number of colonies, one of the best ways to reduce swarming (lesson 48), and a way to keep spare queens and bees on hand for emergencies.

Why split

• Swarm control. A crowded colony builds up to swarm. Splitting relieves the crowding, one of the main swarm triggers. It's a bit like a controlled swarm that you manage instead of losing half your bees to a tree.
• More colonies, without buying bees, replacing losses, or growing your apiary.
• Spare queens and "support nucs": a small colony kept on hand can requeen a colony that loses its queen, boost a weak colony with brood and bees, or be sold (lesson 27).

The trade-off: a split colony puts effort into rebuilding, so it makes less honey that season. Splitting too close to the main flow can cost you your crop.

When to split

• When the colony is strong, typically when the brood nest is crowded with bees and brood. A colony ready to split might have around eight frames of brood.
• When the new colony can get a queen: during the season when drones are flying (so a new queen can mate) or when mated queens can be bought. In most areas that's spring through early summer; fall and winter splits are hard (no drones; queen suppliers usually have none).
• When food is coming in, or you're ready to feed.
• Timing with the flow: splits made about four to six weeks before the main nectar flow give the parent colony time to rebound for the flow. (Your Seasonal Guide gives the timing for your area.)

Getting the new colony a queen

One of the two halves will be queenless after a split. You can:

1. Buy a mated queen and introduce her (lesson 46). Fastest: the new colony starts laying in days. In areas where Africanized bees are present, always use a purchased queen of European stock rather than letting the colony raise its own (lesson 16).
2. Let the queenless half raise its own queen. It must have eggs or very young larvae to make queen cells from (lesson 13). Cheaper, but slower:
3. the bees build queen cells, and a queen emerges in about 1–2 weeks;
4. she mates in the following week or two, then starts laying;
5. all told, 5–6 weeks pass before her first workers emerge, and the colony shrinks meanwhile.
6. Queenless splits often build many queen cells (10 or more). About a week after splitting, some beekeepers remove all but the 2–3 best cells; leaving many can cause the split to swarm when multiple queens emerge.
7. Give it a ripe queen cell from another colony (lesson 79).

How to make a basic split (a five-frame nuc)

1. Find the queen in the parent colony and set her frame aside safely (lesson 36).
2. Into an empty nuc box (or a full hive body), put:
3. one frame with eggs and young larvae (needed if the split will raise its own queen);
4. one frame of capped brood, which will emerge soon and boost the population;
5. one or two frames of honey and pollen (food);
6. empty comb or foundation to fill the box.
7. Shake in bees from one or two extra brood frames (with no queen on them; check!). Young nurse bees stay with the brood.
8. Return the queen (on her frame) to the parent colony and fill its gaps with empty comb or foundation.
9. Decide where the split goes:
10. Another apiary, at least a couple of miles away (a mile or more at minimum): its foragers can't drift home, so it keeps its bees. Best for a queenless split raising its own queen.
11. The same apiary: older bees will fly back to the parent hive, so give the split extra bees (and extra capped brood), and reduce its entrance.
12. Feed both colonies 1:1 syrup unless there's a strong flow, especially if they're drawing foundation.
13. Check in about a week for queen cells (queenless split) or queen acceptance (introduced queen), and again 3–4 weeks later for a laying queen (eggs).

Other ways to split: - Even ("walk-away") split: divide the brood, bees and food into two roughly equal halves; one keeps the queen, the other raises a queen. Simple, but both halves are weaker. - Split by boxes: in a two-box colony, simply separate the boxes, making sure each has eggs, brood and food; find which one has the queen (the one with new eggs in a few days).

If you have only a few colonies, a queenless split raising its own queen may mate with related drones from your own hives. Some beekeepers move the split to another beekeeper's apiary (with permission, and after checking that colonies are healthy) until the new queen is mated.

Nucs need extra care

• They're more vulnerable: to robbing (reduce entrances), small hive beetles and wax moths (don't give them more room than they can cover), and starvation (check food at least monthly, feed as needed).
• Strong nucs can swarm too; move them into full-size hives when they fill the box.
• Treatment doses are set for full-size colonies; adjust for small colonies only as the label allows.

What to remember

• Split strong colonies when drones are flying or queens are available, and well before the main flow.
• The new colony needs eggs/young larvae (to raise a queen) or a queen, plus capped brood, food and plenty of young bees.
• Buy European-stock queens where Africanized bees occur.
• Move queenless splits away or give them extra bees; feed; check for eggs in 3–4 weeks.
• Splits make less honey that year but give you more colonies and fewer swarms.

Quick check

1. Why must a queenless split have a frame of eggs or very young larvae?
2. About how long before a split that raises its own queen has new workers emerging?
3. Why add extra bees to a split that stays in the same apiary?

Adapted from: UF/IFAS Extension, Using Nucs in Beekeeping Operations (IN869); Purdue Extension, Advanced Beekeeping (4-H-1059); Delaplane, Honey Bees and Beekeeping (UGA Bulletin 1045, rev. 2017); UF/IFAS Extension, Swarm Control for Managed Beehives (IN970, 2022).

Adapted from university Extension sources. Experienced Georgia beekeepers are reviewing these lessons. See something that doesn't match your experience? Tell us.