Brood Nucleus
Lexikon
Brutling is another name for the brood split, by far the most commonly used way of making splits in Germany.
Brutling is another name for the brood split, by far the most commonly used way of making splits in Germany. When it is made, the new colony receives one or more frames with young, uncapped brood, that is, eggs or young larvae, together with the bees clinging to them and usually a food comb. From this young brood the colony then raises a queen itself, unless it is given a mated queen or a queen cell anyway.
The decisive difference from other types of split such as the flyer split, the shook split, or the artificial swarm is that the brood split has its own brood from the start, and thus the basis for its own offspring, instead of relying solely on returning foragers or brushed-off bees. That makes it more robust, but it depends on successful queen rearing and builds up somewhat more slowly, because the old brood must emerge first before the new queen starts laying.
In beekeeping practice, the brood split is the classic method when you want to create a second colony from a strong one with a manageable amount of work, for example as part of drawing off brood to prevent swarming. A common beginner's mistake is to put too few bees on the brood comb, so that the brood gets chilled and the split does not get going properly.