Splitting colony

[steveselvage]

I have one colony that is far stronger than the others and has filled a commercial brood box almost to bursting point with brood, they are well on the way to filling their third super. There are no queen cells as yet but I want to increase the number of hives even if it means no honey this year.
How many colonies can I divide this into?
I have never seen the queen despite searching thoroughly at each inspection, I put this down to my inexperience coupled with my poor eyesight.
I am considering buying in some queens to install into the new hives.
I understand that I will need some store frames with each split but there is only one side of one frame with stores in the brood box,should I take frames from a super?

 

[tonybloke]

firstly, have you got a commercial or a national brood box?

if you wait for a while, the bees will probably want to swarm and will produce Queen Cells, this is the best time to go for increase via an A/S.

 

[steveselvage]

Commercial brood boxes with national supers. Will AS when QCs appear but want to increase numbers this year and need to know how many nucs it's possible to split it into.

 

[Poly Hive]

How many nucs? From a ten frame box at least 5 if you are daring, and three if not.

PH