Normally on splits, I have already purchased new queens. I decided for the first time to do something different with one hive. Call it my own little experiment.
I split a really strong 2 brood chamber hive last Wednesday night and moved both of them to a new location. One box has the original queen. The other is queenless. What I am wanting is for them to make a new queen.
Here are my questions...
1. How long before the queenless begins to make a queen cell?
2. Is there a semi-normal location that these cells would appear?
Appreciate all you guys...
#1. If you didn't leave eggs, they can't make a viacle queen. Always make sure the queenless half has unhatched eggs.
#2 Wherever the eggs are.
There were alot of new eggs in the split...so my question was, how long does it usually take before they start making their own queen?
2 to 4 hours........
So you can tell it, about 3 days.
you should see a few worker cells being modified on the 2nd or 3rd day
One more question....will the new Q cell start off looking like a supercedure cell? There were 4-5 of those around the hive today, but no actual Q cell formed or closed yet.
I can't tell you what it looks like the first day or so, but leave the hive closed until Sat. and check it then. They don't need to be disturbed until then, and the cells will be plain then. They will look like supercedure cells.