Hi All, I did a search of the archives and found a handful of posts talking about summer splits, and a couple sounded very positive for the over wintering ability and success of summer split hives. I have had, so far, a pretty good first year of beekeeping and our flow is set to end sometime in mid July. I first of all will check for mites using the sticky board and Check-mite medication procedure and then I'm thinking about a possible split of the two hives. Both colonies are strong right now and have young queens. In the splits I would place newly purchased queens. I have a couple of questions: 1. Are summer splits a good or bad idea? 2. When I requeen the split, is it better to go with an Italian or Carniolan. This is not to start a "which race is better" argument but to see if the Italians are likely to build up faster during the summer (I would be feeding them) than the Carniolans, giving them a bigger colony going into winter and is this (a bigger colony) good or bad. Thanks, Brad