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MikeWaters · 03-23-2013, 06:12 PM

Did the split last week. Essentially I take one hive and split it up into two hives. The queen remains in one hive. And in the queenless hive, they raise a new queen.

In this case, I didn't know which hive had the queen. But I made sure that both hives had eggs. Any egg has the potential to become a queen. This for example ensures that if a queen were to suddenly die, that the colony would not be doomed. The larva is fed royal jelly and this makes it develop into a queen. She pupates and the rest, and then flies into the sky, mates, comes back and lays eggs.

Of course the issue in that case is hoping you get some decent genetics from that drone she mated with in the sky. This is why that queen might need to be replaced with a commercially bought queen of known temperament and quality.

03-23-2013, 06:12 PM	#36
MikeWaters Demiurge Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 36,365	Did the split last week. Essentially I take one hive and split it up into two hives. The queen remains in one hive. And in the queenless hive, they raise a new queen. In this case, I didn't know which hive had the queen. But I made sure that both hives had eggs. Any egg has the potential to become a queen. This for example ensures that if a queen were to suddenly die, that the colony would not be doomed. The larva is fed royal jelly and this makes it develop into a queen. She pupates and the rest, and then flies into the sky, mates, comes back and lays eggs. Of course the issue in that case is hoping you get some decent genetics from that drone she mated with in the sky. This is why that queen might need to be replaced with a commercially bought queen of known temperament and quality.