My splits worked, but puzzled?

[rookie2531]

   I inspected my splits today. I did a double walk away split back on July 10. The first nuc I looked at had a big beautiful dark queen. The only problem was, no larva, I am still no good at finding eggs yet, but no larva. OK I thought at least I found her and I am thinking when they are big and dark, they are no longer virgins. I really don't know, but there she was walking all over empty comb.
   The second nuc was loaded with larva, pattern was so far absolutely tight and perfect. The only problem with this nuc was I did not find her, but after seeing the larva, I did not pull the last frame and she might have ran and hid on that one.
   I built some medium nuc top boxes because I was going to pull some drawn frames from the original hive and swap with some foundations but was not ready for what I found there. Every frame that was drawn had capped brood and larva and was full of bees. So I decided to leave them be in case I pulled the queen and put her in a nuc,(that would be bad.) So for now the nucs will have to draw and fill there own mediums.
   So now I have 3 and started with one. Now all they have to do is get strong enough and store enough to make it through winter.
I almost forgot, they went through 2 gallons of syrup in 3 days. All three together that is. But that still is a record drink, hope I don't have to feed that much for too long.
 
And thanks to Jim, Mike, Wolfer and some others for the help getting me to this point. A good day in the bee hives 

[Wolfer]

If you did the walk away split with capped queen cells on July 10 then you should see larva by aug 10. It could be a few days more but not likely.
It is highly unlikely your queen didn't get bred this time of year. She's obviously made it back from her mating flights. Very risky this time of year.

I'd bet ten dollars against a week old donut she will be just fine. If not put her in a swarm trap bottle and combine with the others.

Feed until it gets too cold and then feed in the spring when temps get into the 50s during the day.
Keep an eye on them, they tend to explode in the spring.

[johng]

Yea, she is most likely mated but, just haven't started laying yet or you can't see the eggs. The only draw back to making late nucs is you have to pour the feed to them. The plus side is once you get them through the winter they explode in the spring and often out do a full size hive.