# Multiple splits from the same colony for better success?



## Absinthe (Feb 26, 2016)

I am curious, how many queen cells did you see? I would have expected that once you split off the original queen that you should have seen a pile of queen cells multiple on each frame. Did you ever see that? Or did you just set the process in motion and wait for a queen to be made? I would think if you have nice eggs in the center of the cells you are seeing a queen rather than a laying workers.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

You want a large hive to raise the QCs, 4 is plenty to mate a queen, if I get your question correctly.


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## GregB (Dec 26, 2017)

hockeyfan_019 said:


> .....
> Here is the question... If you have a big hive, with lots of brood and eggs, might it be better to divide the big hive into 3 or more, instead of just 2, in order to get a better chance to produce a viable queen? If one of the splits fails, they can be recombined. If they are both OK, great, it's a 2-fer. Ideally I usually try for an entire 8 frame medium box for a walkaway, but perhaps 4 good brood frames plus some stores is enough?


What you have done is sub-optimal and risky.
The entire success of the strong unit depended on a single mating success - this is risky and expensive (and you don't have backup matings lined up - the only backup is your old queen).

Of course - the more the better.
I would always break up such strong queen-less unit into 3-4 splits (each one around a QC, ideally).
Chances are good out of these 3-4 only 2-3 will mate OK.
Then later you have options to combine these 2-3 splits into 1-2 units per the queen mating evaluation.

Now, even this is sub-optimal (per my experience, since I was doing the above approach the last 3 years - still did not do great).
Because even the 3-4 splits each done around a QC - too expensive per a queen-less split (basically, you making an over-kill mating split and yet spread your general resources too thinly and forgo the honey crop).

You can mate the ready QCs just by doing 2-frame split-aways - this is plenty to hatch and mate a ripe QC.
No need to be setting up much bigger split for hatching and mating - that is a waste of resources.

This year I will create micro-mating units around each QC and will mate as many queens as possible - cheaply (using a cup of bees on 2-3 mini-frames).
All the while, the strong queen-less unit itself will also try to mate a single queen (may or may not succeed) AND at the same time it will be working for the honey crop because it will keep the workforce.


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## hockeyfan_019 (Dec 1, 2019)

Thanks guys, this was essentially what I was asking. Next time I'll try the multiple method, and as long as I get a queen or 2 out of the process, then it will be fine. The strange thing though is that my huge hive didn't have any QCs that I could find, so I wouldn't have been able to split them out at all. Weird that such a busy hive apparently didn't have any urge to swarm, with no QCs and minimal drone cells, but I thought it was a great candidate for splitting anyways. If I don't find any substantial eggs or brood by this weekend, I'll pull a few frames from another hive to drop in there, so they can work on another queen. Thanks


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