Randy and Allen,

I have also been looking at how to optimize splits and colony bee 
production.  In a APIACTA 43 (2008) article "Single-Frame Method to 
Obtain Several Age-Specific Immature Worker or Drone Honey Bee Cohorts" 
(http://www.apimondia.org/apiacta/articles/2008/sammataro_finley.pdf) 
Jennifer Finley and Diana Sammataro found that queens in small colonies 
(5 frames of bees) layed 23 eggs per hour. Mid sized colonies (9 frames 
of bees) produced twice as many bees, 45 eggs per hour. Interestingly 
Large colonies (15 frames of bees) the queen only layed 25 eggs per 
hour. So there is definably a time to split the colony before the queen 
slows down her egg laying rate.

If you want to optimize the egg laying rate of your queen, this data 
indicates it is around 8 to 10 frames of bees and that 15 is too big.

Randy's experiance of a sizing nuc that is initially small to accept the 
new queen but that will grow quickly with the emergence of the sealed 
brood with new bees to the optimize size for the new queen's egg laying 
is a good and perhaps optimum method. 2-3 frames of brood and bees => 
emerge to become 4-6 frames of bees Total of 6 (2+4) to 9 (3+6) frame of 
bees.
- Paul

randy oliver said the following on 4/26/2010 8:52 AM:
 > ...
 > Some ref years ago stated that this would occur at about 10 frames of 
bees,
 > so the implication would be to keep your splits close to 10 frames.
 > Unfortunately, splits this side accept cells poorly.  If you were using
 > caged mated queens, that would not be a factor.
 >
 > We have good success with 5-frame splits, containing 2-3 frames of brood,
 > and giving them ripe cells.  That way we don't waste too much bee 
labor when
 > they go through the 10-12 days without a laying queen, but they have 
a large
 > enough cluster when she finally does start laying to allow her to lay 
up a
 > lot of brood quickly.
 >
 > I have no idea if this is optimum, but it works well for us.
 >
 > Randy Oliver
 >

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