[Danny Hudson]

I have four hives that I plan on splitting. The hives are about a year old and these are my first splits. I plan on buying new queens and moving the splits several miles away for a few weeks and then return them to my yard. Should the old queen stay with the old hive or go with the new hive as in a natural swarm?

 

[Joseph Clemens]

It all depends on you, your local conditions, the state of each hive being split, and what your technique will be.

Presently, I'm splitting my hives, vigorously. I prefer taking the original hive and moving it to a new location (a few yards away), then placing a new hive at the old location, with one or two combs from the original hive, containing emerging worker brood, and the old queen - filling the remaining space with empty comb, foundationless frames, or some of each. The old queen, with the majority of the field force and some brood and nurse bees, soon lays up much of the empty comb, creating a new brood nest. Then, in a few days I remove any queen cells produced by the new split and introduce a ripe cultured queen cell.

 

[David LaFerney]

If you mean to prevent swarming I don't think it really matters much unless the original hives are really big. If you are doing equal splits swarming is managed by both hives being small enough to keep them in establishment mode for a while. You still need to give them room and watch for backfilling and other swarm prep signs, because even small hives can swarm. If there are already swarm cells started when you split them they will probably go ahead and swarm if you leave them.