# Is it considered standard practice to split a hive each year?



## Ambassador (Mar 30, 2012)

I have two hives that made it through the winter and they both are looking good so far. I'd like to expand some this year but I'm confused as to whether I should split them routinely for this purpose. Obviously splitting reduces numbers/disrupts them for a time (depending on if you have a queen on hand) and I'm concerned about how much this will cut into the honey yield. So where is the breaking point between splitting 2 hives into 4 hives and just maintaining 2 hives (opening brood nests etc.) so they produce the strongest honey yield possible?


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## enjambres (Jun 30, 2013)

Overwintered-bees often have to be split as part of swarm management, despite using other techniques such as opening the sides of the brood nest. The trick is balancing that with maintaining good production-hive strength. Many beekeepers also need the splits to make up for winter losses.

Other people split to try and manage varroa (The broodless periods involved in growing a queen from scratch will interrupt the summer build-up of varroa. This is not the case if you simply introduce a new queen immediately after dividing the bees, as there won't be a long-enough interruption in brood production to have an effect.)

For those of us with excellent winter survival, and no ambitions to keep growing the size of our apiary, the astounding reproductive capacity of our bees can be a problem. The usual suggestion is to make the increases and sell off the the bees as local nucs.

I started with three two years ago. Last summer in order to pre-empt a swarm I was forced (despite opening the brood nest) to divide one of my colonies . This summer I plan on splitting my other two original colonies which grew remarkably last year. I'm hoping I can finesse their swarm plans long enough to be able to divide them in June, and not earlier. But at that point, with six hives, I will be at my self-imposed max. 

I have equipment to handle one or two more, but I don't have the time.

Enj.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

You can do both!!
Allow them to stabilize and build from overwintering. At the onset of your spring flow. Take the queen and 2 brood combs and put them in a nuc. Take one frame with pollen and honey....put it in to the nuc. Put one empty undrawn frame on one side and one undrawn frame on the other side, close it up. move it about 100 yards or so from the mother hive, feed and walk away. make sure there are no swarm cells. Check mother hive in 2-3 days for queen cells. if no Queen cells...take one frame from the nuc or other colony which has eggs and very young brood. put it in mother colony. do this weekly until u have queen cells. Let them go and watch for when the flow gets going check to see when to add honey suppers, because they WILL make tons of it if timed right. A split has been made, you aided in preventing swarming, and increased honey production all in one. 

You can do this yearly, for all the above reasons. but it is not always necessary. depending on the bees, geography, and year.


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## mrflegel (Mar 23, 2014)

Why not split into a nuk. Then feed the nuk offspring back into the parrent hive. You have 2 queens laying and all growth goes into the big hive.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Another option, for both increase and honey yield if you are working with just 2 colonies. 

If you are able to discourage swarming and your hives make it to the main flow intact, keep the stronger of the two "as is" for the flow, and super up. 

Take the weaker one and divide it up into 3 or 4 hives (or nucs). 
You can either purchase mated queens of your choosing for the splits, or pull the queen first and then divide up the capped queen cells later when you divide up the hive.

One very strong colony will probably produce more honey than the combined honey yield from 2 colonies that have been split.


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

Mike Gillmore said:


> One very strong colony will probably produce more honey than the combined honey yield from 2 colonies that have been split.


 I agree, and that's my plan. with 4 this year. I did it last year, with 2 and the one hive produced good surplus. G


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

If you wait until your main flow is tapering off to make your splits, you'll get both honey yield and increase in hive numbers.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Another good option. Just be prepared to feed them through the summer if necessary.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

A good splitting strategy is to split off the queen and a couple frames of bees and mostly capped brood right at the beginning of your main honey flow. The strong now queenless hive have all the resources to produce a nice replacement queen and the queen and her new split will grow into a full sized colony to winter with a little love and feeding. She is usually superceded so you end up with young queens. The main colonies mite population crashes from the brood break but it is a good Idea to treat the new split for mites. a Strip of Apivar will do the job nicely on the small cluster of the split.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

Vance G said:


> A good splitting strategy is to split off the queen and a couple frames of bees and mostly capped brood right at the beginning of your main honey flow.



I agree. This strategy will leave most or all of your foragers with the parent hive so honey production shouldn't take much of a hit. Better than taking a chance on an unexpected swarm and losing maybe half or three quarters of the hive.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

2 things to add to Vance's Comments...

1. That strategy also has the advantage of increased productivity (markedly) in the parent hive...as brood emerges there is no brood to care for, so the young bees are available for foraging while the flow is on.

2. When splitting anytime for any reason, dont forget to consider the foragers (who are tied to the original location rather than a specific queen) as a resource. A hive moved during the day (or at night if it stays in the same yard) can be replaced with a frame of brood, food, and adhering bees at the old location (the opposite of what Vance suggests above)...or move a strong hive specifically to place a few frames of bees at the old location. The biggest advantage to this is (unless there is no flow) the ratio of forgers to house bees is so high they act like they are being fed...most Cloake Board methods do some entracne manipulation to get all the forgers to go to the cell builder instead of the queen right half.


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## Ambassador (Mar 30, 2012)

Thank you for all the great input! So if I split off for a nuc should I do this for both hives or just the strongest one? If the parent hive is too large could I sill end up with an overpopulation swarm once the new queen is reared?


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

I pulled the queen on two hives last year towards the end of the flow. There was a large population and signs of swarming. Seemed to me to really demoralize the hive as entrance traffic slowed noticeably. Hives did re-queen themselves and didn't swarm. What are others experiences with removing the queen from the main hive?

My preference is to make up a NUC from early strong hives and buy a mated queen. As the NUC builds, you can elect to return frames of capped brood to the main hive to catch the flow. 

Or once you get a strong NUC((I run some 6 frame NUCs, take the queen and all but two brood frames of new eggs/young larvae, notch some cells and let the NUC build queen cells on a couple of frames. Leave a couple of queens cells in the NUC and take the other frame with queens cells and make a third NUC up. Place an Apivar strip in the NUC.

Should be saving up some honey frames to give the NUC in late fall to overwinter with. Be prepared to fall feed syrup and use sugar blocks. I have two 6 over 6 NUCs that I started in late July, separated them with 2 inch foam and insulated with 2 inch foam, that are going like gang busters this spring.


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## DaveInThePacNW (Jul 4, 2013)

Ambassador said:


> I have two hives that made it through the winter and they both are looking good so far. I'd like to expand some this year but I'm confused as to whether I should split them routinely for this purpose. Obviously splitting reduces numbers/disrupts them for a time (depending on if you have a queen on hand) and I'm concerned about how much this will cut into the honey yield. So where is the breaking point between splitting 2 hives into 4 hives and just maintaining 2 hives (opening brood nests etc.) so they produce the strongest honey yield possible?


I am in the same boat, however I DON"T want to increase the size of my apiary at all...the two hives I do have are all I want and have time to manage, PLUS I may be moving this summer. What could be the worst that could happen if I just monitored them for disease and mites and left them alone? If they swarm and the hive responds favorably to that and produce a new queen etc., isn't that ok? 

Sorry, I might be really showing my ignorance here. Beekeeping is fun and interesting, but I can't manage this getting any bigger for a variety of reasons.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

If you don't want the increase then take out a nuc or 2 and then sell them off on CL.
I am sure someone is waiting to buy your nucs too. The free section is even better when
mention that you have to many to give away.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

deknow said:


> 1. That strategy also has the advantage of increased productivity (markedly) in the parent hive...as brood emerges there is no brood to care for, so the young bees are available for foraging while the flow is on.


I've read this before on BS and have issues with the management. I've kept bees for 40+ years, and my long time average is 100 lb/colony. I've made more than that at times and once made 58 tons in a good year. This so called "marked increase in productivity" is hard for me to believe, and is something I would never do with my bees. I think it another example of beekeepers reading about a management plan, never really becoming experienced with that management plan, and passing it on as intelligent management with any kind of proof of success. Honey production, and any other segment of sucessful beekeeping requires maximum possible population. How does splitting a colony, removing the old queen, and forcing the colony to raise a new queen, in any way promote population? 

Sorry, I just don't buy it.


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## JRG13 (May 11, 2012)

I never bought into the theory either.... my best honey producers are always ones that are headed by strong queens and brood like crazy at all times and hit any flows with strong populations. Colonies that supercede or splits always seem to need time to catch up.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> This so called "marked increase in productivity" is hard for me to believe, and is something* I would never do with my bees*.


If you have never done it with your bees, then how do you know it doesn't work?

Not trying to be a wise guy, just genuinely curious.


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## WBVC (Apr 25, 2013)

A question for Michael Palmer.

What do you advise for increasing hive numbers and maximizing honey yield when you have two hives to work with?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Mike Gillmore said:


> If you have never done it with your bees, then how do you know it doesn't work?
> 
> Not trying to be a wise guy, just genuinely curious.


Because it takes population to harvest a crop, and it takes brood to build population, and it takes a laying queen to make brood. Now, my flows are from id-May to mid-September. I want my colonies to maintain a large broodnest which builds or maintains a large population through the flow period. There's no way, in my opinion, to maintain peak population if you remove a nuc with the queen, or remove the queen, and expect the colony to re-queen themselves. 

And then, of course, there are the colonies who attempt to re-queen, and the virgin fails to come back.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

WBVC said:


> A question for Michael Palmer.
> 
> What do you advise for increasing hive numbers and maximizing honey yield when you have two hives to work with?



Feed them pollen sub to build brood and population, equalize brood if you must, take a split from each when the conditions are right, allow the parents to re-build and make what crop they will. Build up the splits and winter them. 

OR

Same as above...don't split...but allow them to fill some supers, before you sacrifice the least productive colony halfway through the flow, into as many nucs as their strength will permit...placing the supers on the other colony to be finished. Winter the nucs and build them up the following spring into honey producers...and repeat the process. After a couple years you should have enough nuclei so you can use them as your brood source for making lots of nucs which you build into honey producers the following spring...and so on and so on until you reach your goal.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Michael Palmer said:


> Now, my flows are from id-May to mid-September.


Gotcha.

I believe most people who are recommending this method have comparatively short flow periods ... a span of maybe 4 weeks, roughly in the month of June. Past June they do not need large populations of bees in the hive because there is no continuing flow for them to work in the mid summer months. They are shooting for the highest population of foragers possible during the short main flow period only. Then the bees have all summer to build back up for the fall flow, with a new queen.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

I pulled queens from two really large hives last year as there were signs of swarming. Made up NUCs. Hives did not swarm.

However, it seemed to really de-motivate the hive. Entrance traffic seemed to me to be reduced significantly. It was getting to the end of the main flow but maybe got 30-40lbs more honey. Hives did successfully re-queen.

Is just me or have others experienced de-motivation of a big hive after pulling the queen?


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Gotcha.I believe most people who are recommending this method have comparatively short flow periods ... a span of maybe 4 weeks, roughly in the month of June.


Gotcha? I believe there are more northern beekeepers with extended flows posting on this thread, than beekeepers south of say PA where the flows dry up once it gets hot at the end of June. Not sure about WA and BC. Not sure exactly how many areas have flows that last only 4 weeks in June. I do know that the TI-Ti is yielding nectar in Georgia, and they make honey in June...so I think the flows in the southern states last longer than 4 weeks, and if they end in June, they start now in March. So I still think de-queening a production colony will limit the total production from a colony. But what do I know? Just my hunch and opinion and experience.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Sorry, didn't mean to question your knowledge or experience. I'm sure you've forgotten more about beekeeping than I will ever know.

Just trying to look at all possibilities and see if there may be a situation where this might actually work. I know in my area starting in July and running through August the colonies consume more than they are bringing in, so it would seem counter-productive to have "more" bees consuming stores during that period.


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

Mike Gillmore said:


> Sorry, didn't mean to question your knowledge or experience. I'm sure you've forgotten more about beekeeping than I will ever know.
> 
> Just trying to look at all possibilities and see if there may be a situation where this might actually work. I know in my area starting in July and running through August the colonies consume more than they are bringing in, so it would seem counter-productive to have "more" bees consuming stores during that period.


same in my area. at least August, sometimes middle July and August. 
The best time for me to knock down big hives here is last of June while there is still
a flow for a few more weeks. Worst time is during early build up (don't build up fast enough for flows) and in late July early August (robbers paradise and no flow until groundsel and early goldenrod).


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

Early splits would be really bad for me in my cold late springs. I probably would be better to do as one of Michael's suggestions to overwinter more nucs and _combine_ one with my overwintered full hives for the flow and then do a split later. I wind up with populations peaking after my flow is over. I dont need to weaken them much to prevent swarming but I should be doing something to make them more productive; if not honey, then bees! Splits would almost certainly have to be fed all the way through to fall unless the rare year we get a fall flow.


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## rsjohnson2u (Apr 23, 2012)

Michael Palmer said:


> Not sure about WA and BC. Not sure exactly how many areas have flows that last only 4 weeks in June.


Only my fourth year, so take it for what it's worth. Our flow in (western) WA is blackberries (basically, ONLY blackberries). Lasts two to four weeks. There is some big leaf Maple in spring, if it's not too rainy for flight. Some can move hives to fireweed if they can secure the land to do so after berries. We spend all season waiting and hoping for a four week, at best, blackberry flow. This, with a nectar dearth in May right when we're looking for a June population peak!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The cut down split has been around since Doolittle and Miller. It's all about the timing. In modern days, Marion Ellis is a big proponent as is Lloyd Spears. When I was watching Lloyd do one at a "Master Beekeepers" conference, I talked to Walter Diehnelt about how he would do one. I don't know how often he did, the conversation was more about whether or not to leave the old hive queenless, which is what Walter said he would do or putting a really young queen in the hive which was what Lloyd would do. This is far from a new idea...


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

Michael Palmer said:


> I've read this before on BS and have issues with the management. I've kept bees for 40+ years, and my long time average is 100 lb/colony. I've made more than that at times and once made 58 tons in a good year. This so called "marked increase in productivity" is hard for me to believe, and is something I would never do with my bees. I think it another example of beekeepers reading about a management plan, never really becoming experienced with that management plan, and passing it on as intelligent management with any kind of proof of success. Honey production, and any other segment of sucessful beekeeping requires maximum possible population. How does splitting a colony, removing the old queen, and forcing the colony to raise a new queen, in any way promote population?
> 
> Sorry, I just don't buy it.


I have done cut downs in 3 of our 4 years with bees, based on extensive reading here on beesource. I saw quotes to literature, and much conversation from folks about the 'more bees to gather nectar' theory. This is what our experience turned into.

Year 1 - started with packages, no honey harvested.
Year 2 - One cut down split (hive 1) and it produced more than double the honey of the hive beside it (hive 2), I was convinced.
Year 3 - Multiple cut down splits, but not hive 1 because it swarmed, very large swarm, photo below. Hive 2 was a cut down, produced no honey. Hive one produced almost a hundred pounds. I was under the impression after much reading, it shouldn't do that, not after producing a swarm that didn't fit into a 5 frame box when we captured it.
Year 4 - Cut down 4 hives, including hive 1. Hive 1 dwindled and died out, failed to requeen itself. None of the cut downs produced an appreciable honey crop, we timed the cut down for the blackberry flow, which didn't happen. But the two hives we didn't do it to, produced decently during that same period.



We are entering year 5, and I wont be doing cut-downs anymore. What I have learned over the period of reading about them, and trying them, is a most interesting detail. Most of the folks posting about the cut down on beesource, haven't actually done it, and are quoting what they read. There are a few that have done it for a few years, and if you search, you will find thread to the effect of 'does it really work ?'. General consensus in those threads, well, maybe, kinda, sorta, but I dont see a significant difference.

We wont be doing the cut down in future, for a number of reasons.

a) The concept is good, if and only if you get the timing perfect. If the flow doesn't come at precisely your scheduled time, ie a week or two late, you end up with a weakened hive that doesn't bring in that excess of nectar. If it comes early, also doesn't help.
b) I dont want to take the queen mating risk with a full size colony, better off to leave mating failure risk to a small nuc where we have placed a cell.

The whole issue of the cut-down has taught me an important point when reading here in beesource. Some folks quote what others are saying. Some quote literature, and some folks pass on what they have experienced first hand with regard to the effectiveness of various managment methods and techniques. I've learned to appy a filter function, and pay attention to those that pass on experience, with tabulated results and/or photos of those tabulated results. I tend to gloss over posts that dont start with 'when I tried xxx, yyy is what happened' kind of commentary. One photo and/or video from the beeyard, tells a lot more than endless quotes of things being re-quoted over and over.


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Nice post with an educated point of view.


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## CajunBee (May 15, 2013)

I've read another method that I believe Lauri mentioned, and would like input\thoughts.
This method sort of combines splits and queen rearing, so may not work for someone just starting out with one or two hives.
Just before the main flow, remove a couple frames of capped brood and adhering bees to another box, leaving the queen, remaining brood and foragers. Next day, give the new box a capped queen cell. Extra nurse bees, pollen and honey, of course, from wherever they are available. This leaves the bulk of the workforce in the original hive with a slight lull in numbers until the young brood starts emerging.
Seems viable to me, then again I'm far from being experienced enough to know. Just throwing around ideas. :lookout:


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

I make cut down splits every year, and leave the queen in the original hive taking the brood. My emphasis is on honey. Sometimes I split before the flow and other years near the middle of it, depends on the spring weather and strength of colonies approaching flow.

MBush: "The cut down split has been around since Doolittle and Miller. It's all about the timing."
yup. Doolittle enjoyed some success using this method.
And the timing doesn't need to be exact, just close. In my experience a little early is better than a little late.

grossie2:"Year 3 - Multiple cut down splits, but not hive 1 because it swarmed, very large swarm, photo below. Hive 2 was a cut down, produced no honey. Hive one produced almost a hundred pounds. I was under the impression after much reading, it shouldn't do that, not after producing a swarm that didn't fit into a 5 frame box when we captured it."
If my bees swarm early in the flow the honey harvest suffers a lot, if they swarm late in the flow not so much. 
My experience is that not all hives are in the proper condition to cut down as flow time approaches. Was hive 2 in condition to be split?

"Year 4 - Cut down 4 hives, including hive 1. Hive 1 dwindled and died out, failed to requeen itself. None of the cut downs produced an appreciable honey crop, we timed the cut down for the blackberry flow, which didn't happen. But the two hives we didn't do it to, produced decently during that same period."
hives languish when the flow fails to materialize or the weather turns bad. they do better if they are 'heavy' when the flow turns out to be light.

"a) The concept is good, if and only if you get the timing perfect. If the flow doesn't come at precisely your scheduled time, ie a week or two late, you end up with a weakened hive that doesn't bring in that excess of nectar. If it comes early, also doesn't help."
my timing is never perfect! unless the hive was not strong enough to be split, how does your cut down get weak if you split it a bit earlier than ideal time regarding the expected flow?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>And the timing doesn't need to be exact, just close.

The closer the timing is to perfect the better the results. The further it is the less dramatic the results. But yes, it is seldom perfect. Perfection, though, is the goal. I agree that a LITTLE early may be better than a little late, but very early is not, in my experience. Really late isn't so much a disaster as just not as helpful, in my experience. If you are very late it just isn't worth the work. And honestly if you have a lot of hives it is probably more work than it's worth, but if you have few enough hives that you have time to do a cut-down on them, you can squeeze more honey out of the same number of hives. So if you want to trade management and work for more honey, while making increase it's not a bad system.

And of course, locality is everything in beekeeping. The differences are also related to how long the flow is and how heavy. The cut-down split maximizes a lot of workers during a short period of time. If you have a long enough flow you may reach the point where you are not coming out ahead. And then there is just the year to year thing. USUALLY we get a dearth after the main flow when the rains dry up in the summer. But some years we don't. Those years where the flow is short it pays the most. Those years where the flow is long it doesn't make that much of a difference.


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## wgstarks (Mar 3, 2015)

Ok. So what method would you recommend for early season splits, without a new queen, to increase hives and still maintain at least a moderate honey production from the parent hive?


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

clyderoad said:


> I make cut down splits every year, and leave the queen in the original hive taking the brood. My emphasis is on honey.
> 
> ...
> 
> my timing is never perfect! unless the hive was not strong enough to be split, how does your cut down get weak if you split it a bit earlier than ideal time regarding the expected flow?


Leaving the queen in the original colony is not a cut-down split, you leave the parent hive with a laying queen, so they never end up broodless waiting on a new queen to start laying. In a cut-down, you take the queen and leave the parent to raise a replacement. Perfect timing is two weeks before the flow, in theory, this allows time for all the existing brood and eggs to reach a capped stage, and leaves the colony with no brood to care for during that flow. If that flow comes a couple weeks later, you've reached the point in time where older foragers are dying off and all the brood has emerged. Now the queen is laying, so bees are once again diverted to raising brood but there are no replacements emerging anymore. Population declines, and what population is left is being diverted from foraging to feeding brood. Entrance activity drops off dramatically about 4 weeks after doing the cut down, and takes 3 or 4 weeks to pick up again. In an area with a short strong flow, followed by a dearth, the cut down split sets up what amounts to ideal conditions for the beekeeper. Big population during flow, then small population during the dearth. But if you get the timing wrong, you end up with a weak hive just when you want it to be strong.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

A "cut-down" is referring to the removal of half of the brood nest. Where the queen is left, is variable depending on the beekeeper. Some people buy queens and install young queens in both halves and dispose of the old queen altogether. Some people leave one or the other side queenless. Some leave the old queen with the old hive and let the new one raise a queen. The primary concepts are the timing and the removal of the open brood to the new location to maximize the field force. I think not having a queen at the old location adds to that effect by have even less open brood at the start of the flow. But it's not necessarily a prerequisite to the term "cut-down".

Those variations are described here:
http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#cutdown


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## rweaver7777 (Oct 17, 2012)

MP's advice is that if you split, you want to split your unproductive (honey-wise) hives, not those that will generate you lots of honey. You can't tell this until well into the flow and after swarm season. The common sense lesson to learn here is that if you split early in order to stop swarming you may be splitting your most productive colony and you won't get as much honey. You don't have to be a beekeeper to understand that. In other words, perform other management techniques to minimize any swarming.

Go to youtube and watch this video from Michael Palmer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nznzpiWEI8A I plan to do this kind of management this year, with the double-nuc's overwintering. This way I will have a "bank" of bees and queens to draw from in case I have losses next year. (so far, this year, no losses, so I'm feeding early, and praying). I cannot afford a long-term strategy of and do not want to depend on purchasing bees. (note: pay attention in the video to what people in England pay for bees. The amounts are in Pounds, so multiply by 1.5 to get the dollar equivalent).

And for anyone who is interested and also NOT interested in building your own equipment or cannot, BetterBee has the style of double-nuc mentioned in the video.

Rick


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## knute (Mar 10, 2013)

rweaver7777 said:


> MP's advice is that if you split, you want to split your unproductive (honey-wise) hives, not those that will generate you lots of honey.


One of the subtleties worth mentioning here is that MP's advice includes the assumption that you would be adding queens (or at least cells) to the splits. It's obviously a questionable strategy to do "walkaway" splits with your worst production hives and then expect that they would be likely to have better genetics after making their own "emergency" queens. The magic is that the "bad" bees are still useful in providing a framework for a new "good" queen to get established, and then the new genetics replace them.

(I only mention this because I've had a friend misinterpret the advice and do walkaway splits from underperforming hives without adding queens... Oops!)


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## clyderoad (Jun 10, 2012)

grozzie2 said:


> Leaving the queen in the original colony is not a cut-down split, you leave the parent hive with a laying queen, so they never end up broodless waiting on a new queen to start laying. In a cut-down, you take the queen and leave the parent to raise a replacement. Perfect timing is two weeks before the flow, in theory, this allows time for all the existing brood and eggs to reach a capped stage, and leaves the colony with no brood to care for during that flow. If that flow comes a couple weeks later, you've reached the point in time where older foragers are dying off and all the brood has emerged. Now the queen is laying, so bees are once again diverted to raising brood but there are no replacements emerging anymore. Population declines, and what population is left is being diverted from foraging to feeding brood. Entrance activity drops off dramatically about 4 weeks after doing the cut down, and takes 3 or 4 weeks to pick up again. In an area with a short strong flow, followed by a dearth, the cut down split sets up what amounts to ideal conditions for the beekeeper. Big population during flow, then small population during the dearth. But if you get the timing wrong, you end up with a weak hive just when you want it to be strong.


i have a hard time following your explanation of cut-down splits and the resulting hive condition. How did you do the splits mentioned in your post #30? 

i completely agree with another of your comments :"The whole issue of the cut-down has taught me an important point when reading here in beesource. Some folks quote what others are saying. Some quote literature, and some folks pass on what they have experienced first hand with regard to the effectiveness of various managment methods and techniques"


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## grozzie2 (Jun 3, 2011)

clyderoad said:


> i have a hard time following your explanation of cut-down splits and the resulting hive condition. How did you do the splits mentioned in your post #30?


The way we did it was they way I have read in many different places the description of the cut down split. From the donor hive (call it A) you take the queen frame, and all of the frames of open brood making sure you leave behind at least one frame with eggs on it, and all of the capped brood. These frames go into a new box on a different stand, call this one B. The new hive (B) that you have created is essentially a fairly strong nuc with all the open brood, the queen, and a good complement of house bees. Any of the foragers that came along will end up returning to the original donor hive (A). The original hive now has multiple frames of capped brood that will emerge over the next 10 days and a full complement of foragers, no queen but they have the resources needed to raise a new one. The theory is then, they wont swarm because there is no queen to swarm with, and they have a surplus of bees about to emerge, which will rapidly move to foraging duty. Two weeks later, you have a colony with a ripe queen cell about to emerge, a very large foraging force, and no brood to look after, so they can maximize nectar gathering. A month later, hive A should have a large honey crop with a re-established brood nest, and hive B should be a well established new start. This is about the time population in hive A will start into a steep decline because there has been no brood emerging for a couple weeks, and the older foragers are dying off. If you have a strong flow followed by a dearth, that's ideal for the beekeeper, big population when they have forage to bring home, then smallish population when they are living off stores in the hive. An apparent added bonus, the brood break is supposed to set back the varroa population as well. All in all, to somebody that's never tried it before, it's a process that seems to hit all of the requisite bullets, everything good and nothing bad comes out of the process.

That's the theory, and the first time we did it, one colony to test the concept, we got a spectacular honey crop compared to the other hives, so we bought into the theory. Since then, we've done it to more colonies in successive years, and the results were essentially 'ho hum'. Successful requeening isn't a guarantee, it's been a toss up for us as to wether the honey crop is actually increased when compared to colonies we didn't cut down, and our bees still had a healthy varroa population after the process. Doing the cut down on a large colony (2 deeps with some supers on) isn't a trivial task, it can take some time to find the queen in there. The real 'decider' for us came last summer when we did everything right, got the timing perfect for the blackberry flow, then that flow didn't materialize. The colonies in question suffered terrible setbacks, we didn't get a good laying queen in all of them, and when it was time to take them to the fireweed, we had weak colonies and one of them had already weakened past the point of no return.

We will do things very differently this year, and manipulations targetted at swarm management may involve removing some brood into nucs for new starts, but we will not be taking queens out of colonies and leaving them to raise new ones.


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## dsegrest (May 15, 2014)

DaveInThePacNW said:


> I am in the same boat, however I DON"T want to increase the size of my apiary at all...the two hives I do have are all I want and have time to manage, PLUS I may be moving this summer. What could be the worst that could happen if I just monitored them for disease and mites and left them alone? If they swarm and the hive responds favorably to that and produce a new queen etc., isn't that ok?
> 
> Sorry, I might be really showing my ignorance here. Beekeeping is fun and interesting, but I can't manage this getting any bigger for a variety of reasons.


Maybe you are a candidate for the Snelgrove system.


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## crofter (May 5, 2011)

dsegrest said:


> Maybe you are a candidate for the Snelgrove system.


Snelgroves book "Swarming - Its Control and Prevention" is informative reading even if you do not use his designed division board. It gives a description of other population and swarm control methods including the Demarree. I ran one colony with his method last summer and am very pleased with it. You can choose to either make divides or keep colony numbers the same while still getting honey and requeening your hives every year if you wish.


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