I am thinking of making a split early summer so-

[barry42001]

Here's the plan. start in single brood chamber with s2 frames of sealed brood, 1 frame of larvae in early stages of development, then introduce a queen of my choice. believe with careful attention to details, can't think of a reason why it won't thrive--of course no honey for me from that colony, of course not, but by next year--should be a different story should be brood in 2nd chamber by august if all goes as planned and werather allows for seb=veral minor fall flows
Barry

[tecumseh]

A pretty classical make up for a nucs is two frames of brood of various ages, one frame of feed and one empty. with the shb I now don't so much like to make stuff up in single bodies... which is to say I like to crowd the bees somewhat. once the queen is laying and the population has expanded to 5 frames then I transfer to a single hive body.

generally I like to make the nucs up one day and introduce the queen the next. this is more a matter of culling out the boxes that don't hold bees (leakers) than getting the queen properly introduced and laying. if I know the equipment is real tight (like those cardboard nuc boxes for example) I don't so much mind installing the queen almost at the same time they are made up. I also like to make nucs up and keep them confined for at least a day and stacked in some dark cool space. once the hot weather is upon us air conditioned space to store the newly made up nucs is a real plus.

[barry42001]

I did fail to mention that I also would add on the outside frames honey/ feed, foundation filling out the hive body, and feed syrup/ honey until they refused to take it. While SHB is a issue here in florida and infact every place in US ( throughout the world in fact, or so it seems ) I am inclined to be alittle less concerned initially. Conditions have to work weather wise and as I stated hopefully mid summer honey flows while usually minor should be enough to build the nuc up quickly. I strongly believe that is is within most strains of honeybees, to survive if youi assist them a bit. The only exception are those tiny afterswarms that are about the size of a grapefruit and having to start from scratch comb building and the like, too much for so small a swarm, not enough numbers.

[tecumseh]

I am not certain that what you suggest in #3 will limit the problem of shb since any frames/space would still be uncovered by bees and thereby (the more feed or pollen the more certain this assumption) become a large attractant for the shb. a traditional split (half the feed and brood going into a new box and half remaining with the old queen) would seem to me to be a more highly likely successful strategy.

[rast]

I also am gearing up to make summer splits Barry42001. The most productive hive I have, honey wise was made on 8-1-09. A red pin queen bought from Miksa. I have hives with more bees, but not as productive. Some of the hives have queens only a couple of months older also.
Post summer solstice queen raising thoughts?

[Iddee]

I think fall requeening is the best you can do.

[tecumseh]

rast writes:
Post summer solstice queen raising thoughts?

tecumseh:
it is generally thought that you have better drone population with later season queen rearing. as a downside for all you folks situated in africanized areas... a small study I did a couple of years ago suggest you may also have more africanized drones in the latter part of the season that the traditional spring rearing season.