Simple Splits: Tips on How to Grow Your Beeyard Using Your Own Bees

Spring is here and for beekeepers that means it’s splits season! I absolutely love making splits and building bees! It’s so easy! Oh, wait. You don’t agree? I hear some of you grumbling at that statement. I’ll admit—the first few splits seemed more like participating in an obstacle course I was ill-prepared for. I’ll ease your mind:

If you are still in the not-so-comfortable stage of beekeeping, splits can be intimidating at first, but after you have done a couple, you’ll not only enjoy the process but also reap the benefit of it—more bees!

I often say, “As you become a better beekeeper, you can’t help but make more bees!” Bees can be like rabbits given half the chance. Healthy, thriving colonies will produce more bees than you can manage in one colony and will require splitting. This is a very good thing! Consider yourself successful if you have colonies primed and ready for splits.

It’s easy for me to say, “Just move this and that.” But in reality, when you get into your hive, odds are that you’re going to question what you are seeing and what goes where. My goal here is to make abundantly clear what you need to do and see when making a split. 

First, determine whether you are going to purchase a mated queen for the split (traditional split and most recommended) or generate your own queen (typically called a walkaway split). If you want to purchase a queen, get it ordered now! If you want to let your bees make their own queens, verify that you have a good drone population before making splits. Although your new queen will not mate with her brothers, this population gives you a good indication of the drones elsewhere. 

Only split healthy hives. Attempts at splitting a hive with a high mite load or that is inundated with disease and viruses will only double the problem. 

We often make simple splits into a mathematical equation: 1 + 2 + 2 = 5. This seems to simplify the steps for most of us.

Traditional Split

• Locate the queen. If you are going to replace her, kill her and discard her away from the hive.
• You need: 

• One frame of open or uncapped brood containing one-day-old larvae
• One frame of open or uncapped brood containing one-day-old larvae
• Two frames of food resources (honey and pollen) 

• If using a nuc box, fill the balance of the box with new, undrawn frames or simply divide the remaining resources from the parent colony between the boxes.
• Wait 2-24 hours before installing a caged, mated queen. Note: The longer you wait, the greater the chance that the bees will begin forming a queen cell, which will need to be removed before installing the new queen. For that reason, I recommend waiting only a couple of hours. *For best results, mix 1.5 ounces of Pro Health per gallon of 1:1 sugar syrup and lightly spray the solution onto the top bars and between the frames where the queen will be introduced. This will help mask any lingering queen pheromones, giving the new queen a better chance of being accepted. 
• Check back in five to seven days to verify that she has emerged and is laying. 

Walkaway Split

• Use the same formula as a traditional split (1 + 2 + 2) but disregard where the queen is unless, of course, you happen to see her. In that case, mark the box she is in.
• Check back in three to four days for queen cells. No cells will be found in the split where the old queen is. Note: This is your opportunity to remove the old queen if you want since you know where she is. Bonus: It’s much easier to spot a queen in a small hive.
• If you see queen cells, close the split back up and leave it alone for three to four weeks. This allows enough time for the queen to emerge (16 days), mate (5–7 days), and start laying (5 days after mating).If you do not see a queen cell being formed in the queenless split, you have three choices:

1.     Reinstall a fresh frame of open larvae, giving them another chance at making a queen.

2.     Purchase and install a mated queen.

3.     Combine the split with another hive and try again another day.

Important note: Build splits by placing frames in the same order as you would see in a typical brood nest.

• Brood (open and capped) in the center
• Resources (honey, nectar, pollen) left and right of the brood frames
• Empty, undrawn, or resource frames to the outside of the nest (both sides equal-ish). I say “equal-ish” because odds are you won’t have the same number on both sides.

Moving Your Splits

Ideally, moving your split away from its parent colony keeps drifting from occurring. But the reality is that you may be working with a backyard or fewer than 20 acres. No worries. Simply reorient the entrances of the splits, facing them a different direction from the parent hive they came from. Even if you leave the split right next to its parent hive, the same applies—change the direction of its entrance at least 45 degrees to stop most drifting, if it were to occur.

Feed, feed, feed! It is imperative that you feed a split colony. Also, remember that you have weakened the colony by doing this split. Watch for small hive beetles and keep them under control! A split colony is a stressed colony and will succumb to SHB if allowed.

Aftercare of Your Split

So often, once a split is made, we tend to pat ourselves on the back and leave it there. No, no, no—we have just started! Within just a few weeks, you will find that a successful split will have taken off like gangbusters, and you need to add a second deep. See “Proactively Managing Hive Expansion.” Treat this “new hive” as just that—a new hive. Feed to draw comb, manage space requirements, and control Varroa. Caution: Treating for Varroa on a new split will stress the new hive even more than the split itself did. Hold off until the hive is established.

My Split Is Failing to Grow 

A split could fail to grow for several reasons. Here are some things to look for:

•        Verify you have a laying queen.

•        You could have a nonproductive queen and need to requeen.

•        Varroa mites? Test and take appropriate action.

•        The bee population could be imbalanced:

o    Switch locations with another colony if it’s short on foragers.

o    Shake nurse bees in or insert a frame from a neighboring colony.