Langstroth observed 150 years ago that bees could be continually be removed
from healthy colonies without harm, much as a healthy person can give many
quarts of blood over time with no ill effect.

Langstroth on making nucs:

These small colonies I shall call nuclei, and the system of forming stocks
from them, my nucleus system; and before I describe this system more
particularly, I shall show other ways in which the nuclei can be formed. If
the Apiarian chooses, he can take a frame containing bees just ready to
mature, and eggs and young worms, all of the worker kind, together with the
old bees which cluster on it, and shut them up in the manner previously
described ; even if he has no sealed queen to give them. If all things are
favorable, they will set about raising a queen in a few hours. If the
Apiarian has sealed queens on hand, they ought, by all means, to be given to
the nuclei, in order to save all the time possible.

I come now to the very turning point of the whole nucleus system. 

If some of the full combs are removed, and empty ones substituted in their
place, she will speedily fill them, laying at the rate of two or three
thousand a day ! When my strong stocks are from time to time deprived of one
or two combs, if honey can easily be procured, the bees proceed at once to
replace them, and the queen commences laying in the new combs as soon as the
cells are fairly started. If the combs are not removed too fast, and care is
taken not to deprive the stock of so much brood that the bees cannot keep up
a vigorous population, a queen in a hive so managed, will lay her eggs in
cells to be nurtured by the bees, instead of being eaten up ; and thus, in
the course of the season, she may become the mother of three or four times
as many bees, as are reared in a hive under other circumstances. By careful
management, brood enough may, in this way, be taken from a single hive, to
build up a large number of nuclei.

If the Apiarian attempts to multiply his stocks [too] rapidly ... I will
ensure him ample cause to repent at leisure of his folly. If however, the
attempt at very rapid multiplication is made only by those who are favorably
situated, and who have skill in the management of bees, a very large gain
may be made in the number of stocks, and they may all be strong and flourishing.

# Langstroth on the hive and the honey-bee: a bee keeper's manual.
# Langstroth, L.L. 1810-1895.
# Hopkins, Bridgman, Northampton : 1853.

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