Set standards for your hives at a time of year, for me is is going into pollination of fruit trees at the same time dandelions start blooming. so 1st week in may in my area. the standard for a pollination unit going into an orchard is 5 frames of brood and 8 frames of bees. any over this amount take from the colony, colonies with less get given this extra brood. then extra brood and bees from the evening process can be made into nucs with an extra queen. It is still to early to raise your own queens as there are still not enough drones for mating yet.By the 3rd week in may the bees will be back from pollination and there will be drones fore mating so then nucs can be pulled. At this time I want the colonies to have 7 frames of brood with 10+ frames of bees. This unit will produce a crop of honey with limited chance of swarming as empty frames are added to the brood nest and supers are added on top fairly quickly. Any extra brood with bees is made into nucs.
but it is up to you in what you want from your bees? sell or raise lots of nucs at the expense of a honey crop, or use as a swarm tool to remove the excess bees and brood so the hive meets you management practices and swarm prevention.
There are beekeepers that produce nucs and drop their colonies back to a 4 frame nuc it's self. I will start a thread wit a link to a podcast from Oregon State University with John Gates
