How soon can I make nucs, splits, etc?

[Bob Wilson]

I learned last year from here that drones walking on the comb meant that splits could be made. What does that mean?
1. Wait until I see the drones walking, BEFORE I pull egg frames and make a nuc, giving it another 2-3 weeks before the new queen is formed, emerges, and flies?
2. Or time the nuc so that WHEN the new queen emerges and flies, BY THEN there are drones expected to be walking, like the rough date they did last year?

[iddee]

Open a few drone cells. Purple eyed drones in capped cells means it's time to draft, so you can make your splits as soon as the drone cells are capped for a few days, or open a few and see if they are purple eyed yet.

[Bob Wilson]

Thanks, Iddee.

[.30WCF]

Egg to drone is 24 days
Emergence to sexual maturity is 6-16 days
Egg to sexual maturity is 30-40 days
Time that against your splits, be it a emergency queen, queen cell or bought queen.


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[Acebird]

I like Wally's method.  Simpler

[Michael Bush]

If I'm trying to make increase, I don't split until I have two ten frame deeps (or in my case, 4 eight frame mediums) full of bees.  There are always drones by then...  A strong split will be right at critical mass so it will build up quickly.  A weak split will struggle.

[Bob Wilson]

It became a moot point. Drones are already walking this early.
Last year was about learning how to increase my number of hives though nucs and splits.
This year's goal is to learn how to manage the population in order to maximizing honey.
I knocked the hives back a bit by pulling frames for nucs (April-May is our honeyflow).
No queen cells at all yet in my hives, although there were in one of my friend's.