dear Phil,
I checked my hives yesterday and thought I would tell you how I went.
I got into all 13 of my hives which range from 4 frame nucs to double eight frame hives.
In those hives I found honey on the bottom and brood on the top and it was all relatively tight, I reversed those hives to move the brood to the bottom.
I also found drones and drone cells that were hatching, so I took a risk and did a split.
It is a five frame coates nuc, with a frame of honey, one of honey and pollen, two frames with capped brood and one frame of open brood with range of eggs and open brood. I moved one of my big hives that was cranky and put the nuc in its place in the hope to collect the flight bees and then I shook in some bees from the lids of a couple of hives. Also I did some on the spot queen rearing techniques of cutting out the bottom of the cells with my hive tool. Hopefully I will get lots of queen cells and can split some more hives to get to 20 hive before august.
I will check this hive on saturday week and update you how I have gone. if it has worked than I might let it raise another round of queens to make more splits with. I am hoping to sell a number of nucs this season.
am keen to hear if any one has anything else to this.
cheers,
West End
.