[treetrunk]

I am considering splitting my only TBH this spring, I do not believe I want a second TBH at this time so I am thinking about doing a shook swarm type of split into a lang (frame med) before they swarm. I have plenty of resources for lang style hives so I figure this would be a good plan. Oh yeah I am also going to experiment with foundationless in one lang this year so this would be the one. I figure I could place a frame or two of brood from an existing lang and a frame or two of pollen and honey and the rest empty frames. I was wondering if the brood frames from the donor lang should contain the nurse bees or should i remove them. Also when I brush the TBH into the split how many bars of bees would be sufficient? I figure there should be 10 to 12 frames of brood in another week (very large bars but that is another story)

 

[Delta Bay]

Well covered with bees, 4 or 5 combs if they are equal in size to Lang combs. If you can put the shook swarm in place of another well populated Lang hive it will gain the forgers from it.

 

[catbackr]

I've done splits that way with good success. In fact, I don't tend to add brood frames hoping to cause a break in the mite breeding cycle.