Charlie Mraz on quick splits

> When we divide, we pick the colonies that were the best producers the season before. We winter our colonies in 2 1/2 or more brood chambers so that even in early spring the colonies are strong and divisions of good strength can be easily made with one full hive body containing plenty of bees, honey and sealed brood and enough eggs to produce cells. This division, without the queen, is placed on top of the parent colony above a solid cover with an entrance. This saves the need of extra covers and bottom boards. We do not graft, but just let the bees produce their own cells, and do not look at them again until a month later with queens will be laying. After the queens are laying, the nucleus and queen can be moved anywhere needed for requeening or replacement.

> We find queens produced in this manner are equal to those produced by any other system. By letting each division raise its own queen, we reproduce only one daughter from each mother queen. This helps greatly to prevent in-breeding and prevent losing our basic stock of breeding queens. We endeavor to keep a broad genetic foundation by maintaining as many queens as possible, not directly related to each other. Each year as we find good queens from other sources, these are introduced to add new blood as it becomes necessary. In this way we have been able to maintain our basic strain of vigorous queens over a long period of time. Over the years, our basic strain has adapted itself to our conditions and environment.

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