# How often do hives need to be split and how should I be prepared?



## TonyB (May 4, 2015)

1st year beekeeper here and I'm trying to be prepared in advance for anything that may pop up. My property is relatively small and I only have room for 2-3 hives. Splitting in the future concerns me since I will have no place to put additional hives. I have a couple of questions. Assuming I'm able to maintain healthy hives, how often should I expect to split each hive? I'll be keeping two brood boxes on each hive, how likely is it that the bees will run out of real estate? If they do begin to swarm or run out of room in the brood boxes what should I have on hand? If it's a split, does the queen stay with the original hive or go to the new one?


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## phyber (Apr 14, 2015)

just my $.02...I'd think a split would be needed anytime in the spring to early summer when populations are ramped up for honey production. While it may take them longer to reach that point in a two deep vs. one deep setup, it will happen assuming everything is going well for them. You can always choose to do nothing and let them swarm, however if you want honey that won't always be a good thing.

another idea is if you get to the point where you're reached critical bee mass and need to split, put them into nuc boxes and sell them to others. Cardboard nuc boxes can be had for cheap if you didn't have enough to buy your own wood nuc boxes.


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## michkel (Dec 1, 2012)

I'm only a 4th year beekeeper, so not much more experience than you. I have yet to split my hive, but I purchased another hive to split them if the need arises this spring. My hive population is pretty high, and I've moved the outer frames to the center in the top brood box and added a super to hopefully give the queen enough room to keep them from wanting to swarm. I have some queen cups on the bottom of the frames, but thus far, they are empty. If the queen lays in the cups, I will split the hive in hopes of keeping them from swarming.

As for whether you move the queen or not, it depends on the type of split you do and whether you can find the queen at the time. From what I've read and researched, you can take the queen and move her if you want to simulate a swarm. There are so many different ways to do a split, which is why I haven't tried one yet.

And a split doesn't necessarily have to be on your property. You could have it on a friend or relative's property and tend to it there.


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