Minimal Split

[likes2grill]

My  girls are building up really fast and bringing in lots of stores and doing really well. My question is What is the bare minimum i need to get a 5 frame nuc split and get them to raise there own queen?

[Michael Bush]

Minimum?  You can put one frame of brood and one frame of honey in a two frame nuc box and they will raise a queen.  The quality of the queen depends on several things, though, and the density of the bees and availability of resources (pollen and nectar) have a marked effect.  Also, a nuc that small will not build up quickly.

Three frames of brood and two frames of honey/pollen with about three more frames of open brood shaken into the box (the box should be FULL of bees) will make a nice split that will, after they get a new queen laying, build up fairly quickly.

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