You should have already gotten your wooden ware ready for the swarm season. When you did that, you got ready to split also. Your boxes are cleaned, painted, and have frames of wax, plastic, small lines of wax on the bottom of the top bars, or frames of drawn wax alternated with empty frames.

You can also look at Splits if you want some more information. You should have gone through your hives by now to see if they need feeding, expanding, or just plain splitting (which is another word for thinning). You should have the equipment ready and waiting for the day that you decide to do the deed.

Some of the equipment you need should include bottoms (screened), brood boxes, supers, queen excluders (if you use them), tops, feeders, feed (both sugar syrup and pollen patties), stands of some kind to keep the bottom board off the ground, and wash water, alcohol, and drinking water. Don’t forget your bee-suit, veil, smoker, hive tool, and anything else you normally use in your apiary.

Usually when I split into a nuc, I take the queen, two frames of eggs and sealed brood with the clinging bees, two frames of foundation, and one frame of honey. Then I shake three frames of bees into the nuc.

All of this goes into the truck to be transported about three miles or more to another location for at least 21 days. This will give the bees time to forget their old home location and learn the new one. If at that time I wish to bring them back to the original apiary, then I can and they will not try to go to the old hive.

The mother colony will stay at the same spot when the split occurred. I make sure that there are eggs and young larvae in the mother hive so the bees that are left will be able to make a new queen for itself.

Good luck! Have fun! And above all else, Bee Safe!