Splitting a Hive?

[keito]

When splitting a hive how many frames of brood and honey is an acceptable minimum?

[dean0]

I would not split less than what is recommended for creating a strong nuc which is usually 2-3 frames brood, 1 frame pollen and 1 frame honey.

[asprince]

Lots of factors here that will vary the answer. Will you be giving the split a queen or will they have to raise one? Are you going to shake some extra bees in? Do you live in an area with hive beetles?


Steve

[AllenF]

And just how much do you plan on feeding?  And the time of the year for the split?   

[BlueBee]

In my area, you can get away with a split with 2 deep frames of brood, however 3 frames of brood will build up much faster.  As Dean0 says, give them some food too.   Adding a mated queen will result a quicker buildup too.  In the deep south with your summer dearth and SHB, you probably have some special challenges with splits that we don't have to worry about as much up here.

[FRAMEshift]

Depends on the purpose of the split.  If you are just removing the queen to induce a temporary brood break, it could be done with one frame.  If you just want a queen castle to raise a new queen, it could be two frames.  If you want a June nuc that will grow to survive the winter, probably 5 frames.

[Finski]

I would not split less than what is recommended for creating a strong nuc which is usually 2-3 frames brood, 1 frame pollen and 1 frame honey.

that will be a good hive. The whole langstroth box.
On another hand it weakens productive hive if you take all frames from one hive.

I use to startslowly. First one brood frame with 3 frame nuc. When queen lays it full, I give second frame of emerging brood. Then nuc is 5-6 frames.
After 3 weeks nuc start to get own bees.in mating nuc it takes 4-5 weeks that  own bees start emerge.

After yield season i can take a whole box and put a new queen to lay.

.

[Jim134]

This may help you out

http://forum.beemaster.com/index.php/topic,37672.msg316078.html#msg316078


    BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

[keito]

Thanks for all the advice.

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm