Peter Chiang Mai
>There are ten frames in each colony at present and I am going to make that 
>two fives.

I would put virtually all the brood with the split on the new site, 
especially if you are then going to let them make their own queens - they 
will need plenty of nurse bees.  It could be some time before you have a new 
queen laying, so the hatching brood will keep the split strong.  It would 
really be better if you could raise some decent queen cells ahead of 
splitting.

>"can't be a big hill" ....  well it is really steep....

Yes, I know the area - but that is nothing if you have wings!  Using DNA 
analysis Professor Francis Ratnieks was able to show that queens in one 
valley in the Derbyshire Peak District had mated with drones from a colony 
in the next valley; there was a large mountain in between - so much for 
isolated mating apiaries!

>The comments to move the old queen to the new location so that any bees 
>that get lost strengthen the remaining colony is a really good thought.

Greatly increases the risk of a mating swarm in my view; you would have all 
the fliers raising the new queens and they might well go with them when they 
fly to mate - I would want to keep the fliers with the old queens (standard 
practice when making artificial swarms - at least in the UK) and as many 
nurse bees as possible with the queen rearing splits.

Best wishes

Peter 

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