In my own operation, I've always
split all my colonies in spring in order to emulate the natural process of
spring swarming and requeening.

I wrote about this in the ABJ back in 2008:

About twenty years ago, I
read an article on commercial strawberry
production in California. They described
the new concept of creating strawberries as
an annual crop. Strawberries, of course,
are perennial, but as a crop they were generally
planted, harvested for a couple of
years and then plowed. The fields tend to
build up pests and the yield slacks off. An
annual strawberry crop requires more
input initially, but since they are plowed
every year, pest control is much less of a
problem.

l thought at the time that there might be
something here that beekeepers can use.
Actually, the bee industry was already
using similar practices. Rather than regard
a honey bee colony as a perennial that will
yield year after year, it was recognized
that new colonies work with greater vigor
and are easier to manage. 

Many beekeepers
simply let "problem hives" die out,
which eliminated the whole diagnose and
repair method of management, which is
very time consuming. Instead, they would
concentrate on making splits on their own
schedule, thus obtaining the maximum
yield from their labor.

So, a colony was generally viewed like
a strawberry planting, to be set up and run
for a few years and to be replaced rather
than cultivated and restored. And in the far
north, a real annual form of beekeeping
was developed. Knowing full well that the
hives would not likely survive over winter,
some beekeepers would buy hives from
the South, run them for one summer, and
kill them off in the fall.

What l have in mind is an annual system
that anyone can use and it does not
involve killing off the bees. We lose
enough colonies as it is, so we must have
in place a system to have new ones coming
along.

Keeping Bees Without Chemicals, ABJ June 2008

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