Hi Rod.
Golly, you sure are overcomplicating things.
When I split very successfully, I simply took about three frames that contained
good numbers of FRESH eggs and other brood, honey and pollen and moved them
into a new single super hive 12 feet away from my original two super hive. The
rest of the frames were former honey frames I had extracted the honey from and
which were still drawn out. I then fed the new colony with a top hive box
feeder for one whole brood cycle (30 days).
This hive raised its' own queen from the hours old eggs in the frames and by
the end of September had grown to pretty much full strength; two super hive
bodies and 18 frames jammed full of winter stores. I just repeated the process
this year from that hive and am growing a new colony.
Works like a charm. Just make sure you inspect every 30 days or so to see that
they raised a new queen and that she lays well. She should and if so, there's
no need to buy a queen unnecessarily. Good luck.
John
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John Summerfield
Producer & Host
"The Great Outdoorsman" TV Series
http://www.greatoutdoorsman.com
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