Ok. I did the split today…
The hive was full of brood, ample pollen, drone larvae etc.
The timing was good; I was given a free Italian queen and needed to pick up today.
I had the second hive ready to go. all was set up
I could not find my written in the hive. I spent a lot of time coming through to find her. The split was later in the afternoon early evening. 430. I know a bit late in the day but work cuts into my new hobby.
I still completed the split with the appropriate frames. I babe NOT introduced the new queen yet. I’m leaving the hive , i think, queen less for a couple hours.
Any suggestions?
Put the queen in the hive and hope for the best?
So now you have two hives and don’t know which one has the queen? If so leave them for a couple of days. Check for eggs, if you find them then that is the bix with the queen. The other, without a queen, will have no eggs and possibly emergency queen cells. That is the one to put your new queen into after killing the emergency queen cells. You are not looking for the queen, just evidence of her presence or absence.
Keep your new queen in a cool place and put a drop of water on the cage, she will be fine for a few days.
Cheers
Rob.
2 Likes
My advice is similar to what Rob said. The only thing I would do different is wait 3 days. Sometimes they don’t draw any emergency queens for 3 days. It must take 3 days for queen pheromones to wear off. Plus after 3 days all the eggs in the queenless hive will have hatched. Therefore the hive with eggs should have the queen. While looking for eggs, you might get lucky & spot the queen.
2 Likes
Will do. Thank you for the responses