Our Process of Splitting Unproductive Colonies into Nucs for Overwintering - 2021

Not every colony is productive - this is our process of taking hives that aren't producing honey and making new colonies from them instead.
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[@lasource811]

Cool you guys know your stuff. Are you expecting that empty frame to be drawn out next spring or is there still a flow on or do you feed.

[@HiddenSpringApiaries]

The parent colonies that we pull the splits out of will draw out all of the empty frames in the top box within a week, typically. The nucs draw the empty frame in several weeks, at which point we add another 4 frames underneath of them - most go into winter with 6 or 7 drawn frames.

[@davidpook5778]

Curious, why not use foundations in the frames?

[@HiddenSpringApiaries]

We are treatment-free beekeepers. Part of our management strategy is to allow the bees to build comb with natural cell size and as many drones as they want, both of which help the bees stay healthier. Therefore we use exclusively foundationless frames in the brood boxes. It is also much cheaper than using foundation.