I have two hives they are both double deeps and full of bees.I want to split them to make more hives I don't care about the honey right now.My ? is do I have to have a queen cell in one of the frames when I do it.I have 2 queens on order but they wont be here until 4/17.The bradford pears are starting to bloom here too.I just don't understand the timing thing .Do I wait or what?
You could do a split right now but the splits that do not have a queen will have to raise one. If you choose to do it this way then i would make the current hive location the one that raises the queen. This way you will have plenty of bees and especaily the foragers.
If the bees do raise a queen whom will she mate with??? This not the time of year you see drones in North Carolina. I am the only one ( that I know of) in my area (Greensboro) that has drone CELLS present at this time. But if you split and they raise a queen you had better hope the drones had hatched. I would wait atleast two more weeks. If you are more towards the coast you may have some drones present but I wouldn't know.