# Making splits after the spring flow



## mbear

How much money are you willing to spend on sugar. If you are willing to keep the sugar jar full bewteen now and september you should be ok.


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## beepro

Depending on the flow. If no flow and you make the split then you have to feed them syrup and patty subs.
Going through the dearth if nothing to eat they will not build up to Autumn or winter weight. Then they will stay as
a nuc or smaller. To make the queen or not it is up to you. In a strong split they can though the chance of a MIA queen can
be a risk too. Buy them a mated queen will speed up the process with proper queen introduction method used. Decision, decision!


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## MaynerdOllie

I would buy mated queen if you split, you will have a laying queen within a few days, as opposed to nearly three weeks later of she mates.


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## brewbush

MaynerdOllie said:


> I would buy mated queen if you split, you will have a laying queen within a few days, as opposed to nearly three weeks later of she mates.


Agree, 

If early spring, I "may" let them make their own queen. After flow, purchase a queen. Too many times something happens.....the hive makes an unmated queen, the queen never returns, I find the newly made queen only 1 week later to find a group of supercedure cells (WTH?). 

Nope, easier to just plop down $18-25 bucks, and save yourself 3 weeks. Not that a purchased queen will always be perfect and mated....but that's what I would do.


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## twgun1

One huge advantage to a post flow let-them-make-their-own-queen in the break in brood cycle. It can go a long way in mite control is you time it around late june/early july, post summer solstice (when mites usually start outbreeding the bees because an older queen will naturally start to slow her egg laying). A post solstice queen behaves differently going into fall and will build up going into fall and out breed mites. 

I don't remember what kind of split you said you would do? a walk away? if you can find your queen in a huge summer hive, why not pull her out and make a Nuc with her - feed it well and let it grow while the big hive raises a Q and has the advantage of a break in brood rearing. Another idea might be to pull some frames with eggs in it up into the honey supers and be sure a queen excluder is over the brood nest. Notch a few 3 day or younger larva and see if the bees turn them into queen cells? they often will if they are seperated from the nest...let them cap them then move them out into a nuc. They often treat those "out of place eggs" like a supercedure. So many options, much depends on what your goals are and what you have for queen breeders in your area.


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## Garinder0

I was considering breaking the hive down into 4 nucs if I had the resources and just letting the three nucs with no queen raise one, but if not just trying to find the old queen and split her off into a four or five frame nuc and feeding the crap out of it to get it built up to a least a 2 high nuc by winter if I couldn't get it to 2 deeps.


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## beepro

Your strategy might work if there are still many drones out there. Also that the virgin queens make it back on
their mating flights. If not then you either have to combine to 2 deeps or give them a mated queen. In any case do
have a back up plan just in case. Grafting is different because you can make 3 x more queens than needed for the nucs. With
anything goes wrong you still have the back up virgin queens. I do this to minimize the risk of a MIA queen.


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