How to split a beehive without finding the queen.

Splitting a beehive is a skill every beekeeper needs sooner or later. Whether you’re trying to prevent a swarm, expand your apiary, or give a new mated queen a home, knowing how to make a reliable split is essential. The technique in this guide is one of the most practical improvements we’ve made to how we work across our apiaries.

Why you don’t need to find the queen

The traditional approach to making a split involves finding the queen, pinning her down on the frame so she can’t move, shaking off the bees, and building your new nucleus colony around your chosen frames. It works. But it has one significant drawback: you have to find the queen first.

On a warm, calm day with a cooperative colony, that might take a couple of minutes. On a cold, drizzly day with a brood box full of bees, it can take far longer. If you’re making 10 splits in a session, the time really adds up.

The approach in this guide uses a basic fact about bee biology to your advantage. Place a frame of eggs in a box above a queen excluder, and nurse bees will move up through the excluder to tend to it. Because queens can’t fit through an excluder, every bee in your donor box is guaranteed queen-free.

The result is a usable split without a minute spent searching for the queen. One of our community members shared this technique, and it’s changed how we work ever since.

What you’ll need

Before you start, gather the following:

• A brood box or nucleus box (matching your hive’s frame size, National or Langstroth)
• A queen excluder, ideally a wooden-framed wire one for larger colonies
• A frame of eggs from a healthy colony
• Two frames of capped brood
• One or two frames of stores
• A mated queen in a cage, ready to introduce after the split

If you don’t yet have a mated queen, order one before you start, or wait until the colony is hopelessly queenless before placing your order. We’ll cover both options below.

Step-by-step: making the split

Step 1: Place the queen excluder on the brood box

Start with a full-strength colony. Place the queen excluder directly on top of the brood box. If you have supers above the brood that are already excluded from the queen, leave them in place. They’ll help draw bees up through the donor box from both directions.

Step 2: Build the donor box

Place an empty box, matching your frame size, directly on top of the excluder. Into this box, add:

• One frame of eggs in the centre, ideally fresh eggs rather than older larvae. This is the key frame. Nurse bees will cluster over it to protect and warm it.
• Two frames of capped brood, one either side of the egg frame. These give the split a ready workforce when they emerge.
• One or two frames of stores, to the outside. This keeps the new colony fed without any immediate need to top up.

Fill any remaining space with drawn comb if you have it.

Step 3: Wait 10 minutes

Reassemble the boxes and leave the hive alone for around 10 minutes. During this time, nurse bees from the colony below will move up through the excluder to tend to the eggs. The donor box will fill with bees, every single one of them queen-free.

If you have other hives to prepare, this is a good time to go and do the same on your next colony. Come back when you’re done.

Step 4: Move the donor box

After 10 minutes, the frames will be covered in nurse bees. Take the box off and transfer the frames into your nucleus box. Because every bee came through the excluder, no queen is among them.

You now have a queenless split with nurse bees and young brood. The next step is adding a new queen.

Adding a mated queen

Once your split is ready, you have two options for introducing a new queen.

Option 1: Introduce immediately. Place the queen in her cage between two brood frames, with the fondant tab still in place. Leave her there for eight days while the colony builds emergency queen cells. On day eight, go through every single frame and knock down every emergency queen cell you find. Then open the fondant tab and leave the colony alone for another seven days.

Option 2: Wait until hopelessly queenless. Leave the split for eight days, let the bees build emergency cells, then knock them all down. Only once the colony is hopelessly queenless, with no queen cells and no larvae young enough to raise one, should you introduce the new queen. Colonies accept queens very reliably at this stage because they have no alternative.

Both methods work. The critical step either way is the same: you must knock down every emergency queen cell before releasing the new queen. Leave even one behind, and the colony will use it to raise their own queen. Your new mated queen will be killed as a rival.

Placing the queen cage

Place the cage horizontally between two brood frames. Horizontal placement stops the fondant from dripping down onto the queen. The bees will eat through the fondant over the following days, releasing her gradually and giving the colony time to accept her scent.

Once the tabs are open and the cage is in position, close the hive and leave it alone for at least seven days. This is the part most beekeepers find hardest, but it’s also the most important. Every unnecessary disturbance during this window increases the risk of rejection.

What to expect after introduction

Return to the colony after seven or more days. You’re looking for fresh eggs and young larvae, the clearest sign the introduction worked. If you can spot the queen herself, great, but it isn’t essential. Eggs tell you she’s in there and laying well.

Don’t be concerned if the colony is still small. That’s completely normal for a new split. What matters is the brood pattern. A queen laying consistently across the frame, filling cells tightly and evenly, is doing exactly what you want.

The growth rate can surprise beekeepers who haven’t seen it before. A two-frame split made in spring, with a good mated queen and a decent nectar flow, can build to a full box of bees in just a few weeks. As the original brood emerges and adds to the workforce, the new queen fills those empty cells right back up again.

Building your apiary with a starter colony

If you’re making splits from established hives, this technique gives you everything you need. But if you’re building up from scratch, or you want to add a strong, reliable colony quickly, our nucleus colonies are the simplest route.