Every beekeeper thinks they control the hive… until spring proves otherwise.

Every beekeeper thinks they control the hive… until spring proves otherwise.If you don’t split at the right time, your bees will do it for you.

Three ways to split. Your choice.

This might take a few minutes to read… but stay with me. It might save you a colony.

Every spring we open our hives with hope. And sometimes… the numbers are not what we wanted.

That is when splitting becomes more than a choice. It becomes a tool. To recover losses, to expand, or simply to stay one step ahead of swarming.

There are many ways to split a colony. These are three that I have personally used over the years. Not theory. Practice. With all their good and bad.

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First method

The urgent walk away split

This is the one we use when time is not on our side.

You open a hive and you see numerous Queen cups, maybe already sealed cells, congestion everywhere. The colony is preparing to leave. If you don’t act, you will lose bees.

So you act immediately.

You assess the hive quickly. Brood, open and capped, pollen, nectar. You don’t need to find the queen. You simply divide everything into two roughly equal parts and place them into two boxes.

Then, day by day, you slowly move the boxes further apart.

Now this is critical.

You must remove all sealed queen cells and elongated cups. Both splits must have fresh eggs, the tiny ones, the *sticks * as I call them, so they can both raise a new queen if needed.( Sometimes the existing queen may end up flying away during the operation or get crushed by accident)

If you decide to keep some existing queen cells, quickening things, then an immediate follow up inspection is not optional. It is necessary. You cannot always tell their true age. A sealed cell might be 8 days old… or ready to hatch tomorrow.And that difference changes everything.

A small hint. Cells that are close to hatching tend to look darker at the tip.

Always make sure the queen right colony does not keep any queen cells. Look carefully they tend to construct them in all possible areas, some are even built in the honey frames!! Otherwise… it may still swarm.

Pros

The colony is immediately relieved from pressure

Swarming is often delayed or prevented (especially in suburban areas where swarming bees can become a nuisance)

You can roughly predict when the new queen will emerge

It is fast and practical when time is limited

Useful for inexperienced beeks or ones with poor eyesight 😆... Joking you can't easily find a queen in a congested hive

Cons

You don’t know where the queen is in prior so 

You may lose the chance to use the best swarm cells if an immediate follow up inspection is impossible 

The moved colony loses foragers and needs support

Feeding might be necessary if there are no resources to spare 

You can try tricks like rotating boxes so they will be equally filled with forages ( laborious )or blocking entrances with grass to force reorientation. I tried them too.

In my experience, the colony that leaves the original position still ends up weaker in foragers.

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Second method

The planned split

This is the version you do before things get out of hand. The first signs are already there. Drones start being raised, roughly one month prior to swarming. Observe their position in the hive. Drones hanging out in the brood area are young. Drones sitting on outer honey frames are mature and flying. 

That tells you how close you are to swarming impulse.

You select about half of the brood frames. You make sure they contain eggs, open larvae and capped brood.

You shake all the bees off those frames back into the hive.

You also take a couple of frames with pollen and nectar and shake those as well.

You rebuild the original brood nest properly. Brood in the center as a solid block, resources on the sides. Then you add a queen excluder and a super on top.

Inside that super you place the brood frames you chose earlier and the resource frames.

You close the hive.

Within 24 hours, nurse bees will move up through the excluder to care for the brood. The queen stays below.

The next day, you take everything from the upper box, now full of young bees, brood and food, put it in a small box and move it to a new location. Make sure the box is small so the bees can retain proper conditions easily. Chilled brood is a thing to consider!

No foragers will leave, because there were none to begin with. The population you see is the one that stays. 

After about a week, you inspect and keep one or two good quality queen cells.

Look for well shaped cells, not too long or too short, with a textured surface and lighter wax.

Pros

No need to move boxes gradually

Very controlled method

Works well for both expansion and swarm prevention

Cons

No foragers in the new split, ( until the nurses become foragers) so feeding is often necessary

You must manage resources carefully

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Third method

Swarm prevention, change of queens, used we we want no expansion 

This one is a bit more advanced, but very useful when space is limited.

You create a split above the main colony using a super with a separate entrance facing the opposite direction.You follow the same process as described above (the planned split), allowing nurse bees to move up. Make sure you have adequate bees , that fully cover the frames.

After 24 hours, you insert a solid divider ( inner lid ) between the boxes. This blocks all dispersed pheromones from the queen below.

Without that signal, the upper part starts raising a new queen.

Once the queen cells are sealed, you keep one or two and remove the rest.

Meanwhile, you give enough space to the lower colony to expand, adding a super in between. Configuration: mother colony, super -inner lid , split colony.

Eventually, the new queen emerges, mates, using the upper entrance.

If you are satisfied with her performance, you remove the old queen.

Then you reunite the colony gradually, remove the inner lid and add a screen board for 24 hours so the bees will get accustomed to the new queens smell. Place the super with the new queen above the existing brood chamber and the remaining super above that. 

Pros

Excellent swarm control

Efficient use of limited space

Allows you to replace queens without breaking the colony

Strong hive for honey harvest 

Cons

Requires careful timing and attention

Not ideal for beginners

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In the end....

There is only the method that fits your bees, your timing, and your way of working.

Evangelia Mavridis