Select a strong, good quality colony (a marked queen will make the job easier).

Feed early to stimulate growth (further feed will be needed).

An extra hive and frames and dummy frames will be needed.

Select the strong colony to be split and to raise queen cells and place a new brood box with foundation a few meters away.

One cell can be left in the raising colony to re-establish there. Dummies should be removed and replaced with new frames as appropriate.

These guidelines should be modified to suit local circumstances.

Based on an article by Glyn Davies.

The colours are used to show which year the queen was born in, they also help to enable beekeepers to spot the queen when doing a hive inspection.