# Making Extreme Spilts with 2 Frame Nucs



## Arkansawbeeman (Feb 4, 2016)

Hi, I've been keeping or killing bee for 4yrs now I can't seem to get pass 20 hives. I had a bright idea of splitting 5 hive with 2 frame nucs and queen cells to make 100 hives. Starting March 20th to May 31st. I was wanting some input on this. Thanks


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## billabell (Apr 19, 2010)

I am not following you-splitting 5 hives to make up 2 frame nucs. How many frames are in each of the five hives and what is their composition? What is the composition of the 2 frames you are proposing to use to start the nucs ?


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Maintain your hive fundamental needs and you should be fine. I make up 2 frame nucs and it works great. Your math might be off though


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

If you have 5 double deep hives to make splits, that will give you 100 frames total. With a very robust population of bees in each hive, 2 frames per nuc, and purchasing "laying queens" for each nuc, you might be able to pull it off. But that is only 50 nucs. And I think that might be a stretch too.


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## Dave1958 (Mar 25, 2013)

If each frame had everything you need. But even in my best hives there are comb underwent, empty com. Out of 20 frames likely 4 hits that. The other issue, is bees will leave to return home. Only nurse bees will stay, unless you move them. I did a couple of 2 frame splits, wound up with chilled brood and robbing. Have to really reduce the entrances, and have enough resources to survive as these won't have a field force. You will have to feed heavily and check daily. Will it work, yes but you have to be prepared


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## johnbeejohn (Jun 30, 2013)

i think you should research brood factories
i would try to build them stronger you can always split them at a later point again to over winter
weak splits can be overcome by pests and robbing quicker


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## yotebuster1200 (Jul 28, 2013)

I think Palmer states he can take a 4x4x4 nuc and split it ten fold. I don't think he does it all at once though. Maybe he will chime in and explain a little better.


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## timgoodin (Mar 10, 2007)

I have tried 2 frames splits several times and yes it will work. The best time is after temperatures are very warm and chilled brood is not a big issue (I don't even attempt this until late spring/early summer when it is HOT outside). Expect to feed syrup into late fall and provide sugar blocks all winter. I pull a frame with swarm cells out of a regular hive. This will usually have capped brood and nurse bees. In addition choose a frame with honey and pollen and put in a nuc box (I use a 5 frame box) along with another shake of nurse bees from a frame of open brood. 

Provide this nuc syrup feed and close the entrance up to a tiny opening to help with robbing. I put these in the slight shade to keep them from over heating in the extreme heat of late afternoon but be careful since small hive beetles can over run these tiny nucs almost overnight. After several days check to see that the queen has hatched, mated and started laying then add one or two frames of drawn empty comb. At this point population gets pretty low and I either combine them with a hive I want to requeen or I give them a frame of capped brood to boost the nuc. They usually reach critical mass after the extra brood is given to them. I have tried to get them to expand with the original two frames without adding the additional boost of capped brood and they just sort of stay alive but don't expand and build up as well although there is a slow growth as long as syrup is fed. This method requires a lot of intervention and feeding by the beekeeper and if there is a dearth they are very difficult to maintain due to robbing even with entrance reduction because of the small population. Very intensive management is needed to baby them along. I've had much better success with a three to five frame splits and a lot less work.

Bought queens will save you several weeks assuming they are accepted but costs more initially.

Tim


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Arkansawbeeman said:


> I can't seem to get pass 20 hives.


And your goal is to make 100 new hives with the least amount of resources? If you had a goal of 25% increase you would end up with 25 hives and solve your first problem. Once you solve your first problem then you can increase your percentage increase every year. Sometimes going slower is faster.


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## phyber (Apr 14, 2015)

Acebird said:


> And your goal is to make 100 new hives with the least amount of resources? If you had a goal of 25% increase you would end up with 25 hives and solve your first problem. Once you solve your first problem then you can increase your percentage increase every year. Sometimes going slower is faster.


a good quote I heard, "nothing good happens fast."


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Acebird said:


> And your goal is to make 100 new hives with the least amount of resources? If you had a goal of 25% increase you would end up with 25 hives and solve your first problem. Once you solve your first problem then you can increase your percentage increase every year. Sometimes going slower is faster.


:thumbsup:


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## kaizen (Mar 20, 2015)

I think OP listing the range of months is the key. As pointed out not going to hit that number from 20 in one split but waiting another 2 weeks and repeating might. that's a lot of queens to buy.


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## Riverderwent (May 23, 2013)

timgoodin said:


> Provide this nuc syrup feed and close the entrance up to a tiny opening to help with robbing. I put these in the slight shade to keep them from over heating in the extreme heat of late afternoon but be careful since small hive beetles can over run these tiny nucs almost overnight. After several days check to see that the queen has hatched, mated and started laying then add one or two frames of drawn empty comb. At this point population gets pretty low and I either combine them with a hive I want to requeen or I give them a frame of capped brood to boost the nuc. They usually reach critical mass after the extra brood is given to them. I have tried to get them to expand with the original two frames without adding the additional boost of capped brood and they just sort of stay alive but don't expand and build up as well although there is a slow growth as long as syrup is fed. This method requires a lot of intervention and feeding by the beekeeper and if there is a dearth they are very difficult to maintain due to robbing even with entrance reduction because of the small population. Very intensive management is needed to baby them along. I've had much better success with a three to five frame splits and a lot less work.
> 
> Bought queens will save you several weeks assuming they are accepted but costs more initially.
> 
> Tim


Tim has nailed it concerning many things, including small hive beetles, sun, and feeding. In your location, particularly with small nucs, sunshine is needed to prevent SHB, but that causes heat problems. I would reread that post about three times. Cheers,


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## Matt903 (Apr 8, 2013)

Tim really did nail it there. I did turn 19 hives into 80 one season, using queen cells. It was alot of work, ALOT of feeding, and tons of TLC. I don't think I want to try it again. My losses of the 80 hives was 15% over the winter. I did not even attempt to get honey. I made the nucs three frames stong and added brood to some of them. The origianl 19 hives were strong double deeps. It can be done, but is alot of work.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

Matt903 said:


> I did turn 19 hives into 80 one season, using queen cells.


You are comparing a ratio of 4.2 to 1 to a ratio of 20 to 1. Not the same in my book, not even close.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Arkansawbeeman said:


> .... I can't seem to get pass 20 hives.


You've had a lot of great replies in this thread. 

I keep getting drawn back to your opening statement. It would be helpful to know "why" you are unable to get past 20 hives. If there is some fundamental issue preventing that from happening which has not been addressed, you may end up going through all the work and expense of splitting and still end up with only 20 hives .. or less. I'm not questioning your beekeeping skills, just curious why you are stuck on < 20 hives.


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## Arkansawbeeman (Feb 4, 2016)

Thanks everyone for the input its my first time posting on here. I'll let y'all know step by step how it works out.


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## Brady (Jan 28, 2017)

So....how did it work out?


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## Arkansawbeeman (Feb 4, 2016)

Not good it seems like the splits I did make replaced my original hives by summer time. I only made about 18 splits and only half of the queens made it back from their mating flight I only end up with 6 hives by fall time now I'm down to just 3 hives. I'm not giving up. Spend some more money lol


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## Nordak (Jun 17, 2016)

Arkbeeman-Hot Springs and surrounding areas should be a bounty for bees I would think. Before you spend any more money, set out some swarm traps. You live surrounded by National Forest. There's bound to be some good bees to catch and propagate from. I definitely wouldn't throw good money after bad and I'd definitely not approach things the same way expecting different results.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Welcome to Bee Source, Brady!

So do you keep bees too?

With 3 hives now, you have to do some serious thinking and planning. I would buy them mated queens from
tf sources. Spend some money on the mite biting queens at splitting time. If you forgo honey this season and
buy 10 mated queens then by Autumn time you should have more nuc hives to overwinter them later on. Also, don't
just stop in mid-July for the continue expansion. Push the expansion phase well pass late Autumn to see what you will
get. I got mated queens in mid-Oct last season. Of course, it varies year by year too. If a split is not successful you can
always do a late combine even in the middle of winter.


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## dennis crutchfield (Aug 5, 2016)

I like what a wise beekeeper once said. bees make bees or honey. if you want to increase, reduce your hive of two deeps down to one and crowd them and keep checking every 10 days for queen cells . take the frame of cells and one comb of honey and place in a small nuke and a shake a few bees into it. or better yet put them in a mini nuc for regulating head. replace original hive with some foundation. now keep the syrup going on your main hive as well as your nuke. if the nuke has some unsealed brood hatching and the queen starting to lay. in about 30 days that nuke can be split and continue splitting your nuke all summer long. if your main hive is kept crowded and fed, you should be able to make countless splits all summer long. you will be surprised how many nuke boxes you will need. I have made an extra 100 nukes and will more than likely run out of them in a few weeks if feed right. of course it will depend on mite, beetles, weather, personal mess ups. my lesson I have learned the hard way is always have back up queens being mated so I can replace quickly if a virgin does not make it back. this year that problem will be solved. right now I have a hive without a queen and may lose it or have to combine it . but I got greedy and sold all my queens from last year every year is a new a learning experience.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Mike Gillmore said:


> You've had a lot of great replies in this thread.
> 
> I keep getting drawn back to your opening statement. It would be helpful to know "why" you are unable to get past 20 hives. If there is some fundamental issue preventing that from happening which has not been addressed, you may end up going through all the work and expense of splitting and still end up with only 20 hives .. or less. I'm not questioning your beekeeping skills, just curious why you are stuck on < 20 hives.


What Mike said. Have you figured out the limitation/ Are you at the carrying capacity of the yard between yours and your neighbors? Have you been stretching thin for so long your bees are not up to hard splitting?

My limitation is health and time, and I do not relocate yard to better forage because of that. Hard splitting for me proved to be the bad path. Exactly the wrong move under my constraints.


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## 1102009 (Jul 31, 2015)

Arkansawbeeman said:


> Not good it seems like the splits I did make replaced my original hives by summer time. I only made about 18 splits and only half of the queens made it back from their mating flight I only end up with 6 hives by fall time now I'm down to just 3 hives. I'm not giving up. Spend some more money lol


Those I know who did this have 100% losses now.
They change to stronger splits and some queen breeding on the side.


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## Mike Gillmore (Feb 25, 2006)

Arkansawbeeman said:


> ... I'm not giving up. Spend some more money lol


I read through the thread again and didn't see where anyone asked you about mites. 
What are your mite counts?
Have you been treating? 

I'm sorry you've been having such a difficult time with losses. I would encourage you to look a bit deeper, and through the process of elimination, get to the root cause of your dead outs. This was apparently going on for 4 years before you decided to make all of the splits, so there is no doubt some underlying cause that you need to address, or nothing will change.


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## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Arkansawbeeman said:


> Not good it seems like the splits I did make replaced my original hives by summer time. I only made about 18 splits and only half of the queens made it back from their mating flight I only end up with 6 hives by fall time now I'm down to just 3 hives. I'm not giving up. Spend some more money lol


It seems that there is something fundamentally wrong with your methods to result in such a poor yield. If you really want to resolve this, then I believe that you need to provide a very detailed accounting of what you did. In particular, splitting methods, feeding schedule, varroa assessment and management methods, local forage conditions, genetic source of your bees, etc. This could be something simple, but we need more information.


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## beestudent (Jun 10, 2015)

Just gonna say up front, this is MHO, and I didn't read all the posts.

Starting with 20 hives, and using 5 for increase? What's your death rate? The rest aren't going out for coffee and doughnuts, so I'm guessing they are for honey production. 10 hives to make splits from out of 20 might be better, because of the fact many frames may not be perfect. 

5 into 100? Sounds like an idea I would have come up with a year or 2 ago, no offence. 

I would suggest that making 4 or 5 frame nucs, making 20 to 25 from 5 double deeps. Buy queens or not, make them strong enough to make queens if that's what you do.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

It's all more complicated than just how many splits. A strong split recovers quickly and can be split again. A weak split will struggle. A split with a queen cell or a laying queen will recover faster than a split that has to raise it's own queen from scratch. But to raise your own queens is more complicated. Also more efficient... There are a lot of details involved. Stealing a frame from each of your string hives to make one split every week or so will not set them back any noticeable amount and will give you strong splits that can quickly get going. That might be the better plan.


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## beepro (Dec 31, 2012)

Yep, I'll be using all the better plan and split strategy this Spring. Added to it is the
I.I. process to minimize queen loss. Then you don't have to bother with a spare queen for the back up.
Nobody say you cannot use both strategy at the same time. Make it flexible for you and the bees!


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Added to it is the I.I. process to minimize queen loss.

I seriously doubt it will minimize queen loss. Supersedure of I.I. queens is high.


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## Learning2Bee (Jan 20, 2016)

Michael Bush said:


> It's all more complicated than just how many splits. A strong split recovers quickly and can be split again. A weak split will struggle. A split with a queen cell or a laying queen will recover faster than a split that has to raise it's own queen from scratch. But to raise your own queens is more complicated. Also more efficient... There are a lot of details involved. Stealing a frame from each of your string hives to make one split every week or so will not set them back any noticeable amount and will give you strong splits that can quickly get going. That might be the better plan.


:thumbsup:


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

In my experience it will not work. 2 frame nucs simply flounder and never build up.


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## schmism (Feb 7, 2009)

Arkansawbeeman said:


> Hi, I've been keeping or killing bee for 4yrs now I can't seem to get pass 20 hives. I had a bright idea of splitting 5 hive with 2 frame nucs and queen cells to make 100 hives. Starting March 20th to May 31st. I was wanting some input on this. Thanks


Werent you the guy that posted this exact same "crazy" idea spring of last year? Except wasnt it, you were going to buy 20 packages and split them 5 times and have a 100 hives by the end of the year?
how did last year go for ya? you have your 200 deeps and 2000 frames yet? find that $60k its going to take?

just had a commercial beek in Central IL speak the the bee club last fri. He keeps on avg 200 hives. He plans for 40% losses. he is planning on buying 40 packages and another 40 queens for walk away splits of his strongest hives that overwintered.


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