# Splitting without Adding a Queen



## dickm (May 19, 2002)

You would lose almost a month of a laying queen. Then the queen you get, having been created under "emergency" conditions may not be of good quality. To me, it's a no-brainer to order a new queen.

dickm


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## Lucus76 (Mar 18, 2008)

*Country Cousins*

Another reason is it will increase the genetic diversity of your yard, eventually, if you make too many splits that way there will be too much inbreeding.


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## Chef Isaac (Jul 26, 2004)

Tom:

To get down to the answer to your questions, yes, you can split without a queen. Just make sure you move the split more then 2 miles away so they do not drift back to the original hive. 

Dick has a good point however, the break in the cycle of brood is not a bad thing. A great thing to reduce mite levels.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Has anyone had any experience with making splits and not adding a queen to the new split?

Many times.

> Will just making sure there are eggs so the split can make their own queen work?

Most of the time. Sometimes a queen doesn't make it back from mating.

> Until the new queen mates, frames could be added to bolster the population as needed.

Sure.

> Any thoughts?

http://www.bushfarms.com/beessplits.htm#concepts


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## Jeffrey Todd (Mar 17, 2006)

Sure it will (usually) work. To increase your odds of getting a good queen, feed the bees, make sure they have plenty of bees and/or capped brood (you can put the queenless part on the original hive stand) and you may even want to try to have the eggs or young larvae in new comb so it may be more easily formed into a queen cell.
Ordering queens has the downside of 1) expense, 2) risk of bees not accepting her, 3) introducing genetics not suited to your area, 4) poor genetics or qualities.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

To me, there is no downside to ordering queens.

Cost.....a months lost production of a hive, with combs possible being used to bolster numbers...now that's costly.

acceptance....I can have better odds introducing queens (less than 5% loss) than I have in lost queens during mating and other problems with drone laying, etc. (up to 25% lost in total queen operation loss)

Genetics not suitable to your area....You have the power to order from the breeder of your choice. If thats important to you, then order from a local, or breeder in similar environment.

Poor genetics or quality....Know your breeder and the operation from which you order. There are many good breeders out there without assuming you will get bad quality or genetics, unless you are one to not ask questions and do a little research.

And although I think every beekeeper should raise some queens, I also know much of my queen business is based on people calling of stories of "I did some splits and....." or "I tried raising some queens and....", or "My hive swarmed and I pinched some cells....", and so on. Its not always as easy as its made out to be. Buying a good queen and introducing her into a split may be well worth the money in the end. Or the split may be great, as long as you factor in the lost productivity.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

I do it all spring long as part of my swarm management. Lost production time in these nucs isn't important to me. They usually become my emergency backup queen sources and frequently are overwintered to make next season's early starts. Any queens that are poor producers or have other undesireable qualities are 'pinched' and the remaining bees merged with another hive. 
Of the 'store bought' queens I've gotten in the past few years over 40% are superceded within the first 90 days. In my recent experience, I'm not convinced that the queens produced from queenless splits are inferior.
As stated before, start with a pollen/honey frame, a frame with mature, capped brood, a frame with eggs and plenty of bees. Feed them if you are approaching a dearth or you want quicker buildup.


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## BjornBee (Feb 7, 2003)

Dan, you raise your queens this way? I would of thought you grafted and had a more proficient system in place?

I would find that making my queens from splitting all my hives in this manner would give me a queen quality from across the spectrum of every hive. I find that selecting my best hives to graft from allows me to select the best of the best, and allows me to control mating quality with drone genetics and queen source.

I'm not saying you won't get good queens from doing this (raising their own). But from a proficiency standpoint and from a genetic control issue, I would find this interesting from a breeder.

I would find that even a hobbyist would benefit from doing a graft from their own selected queen source and trying to be as productive as possible. Walk away splits with letting them raise their own queens is about last on my list for quality and maximizing resources of my yards.

I think going from "queens are crap from the guy down the road", to "splitting and raising their own is the best we can suggest" may miss other options in the middle that may be better suited.

Perhaps another day we could even discuss the selection value of the queen that "wins" after battling it out with other queens when more than one queen emerges when splits are made and multiple queens cells are raised. I think the nastiest queen many times wins, and the resulting passed on genetics may be something for others to consider.


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## MountainCamp (Apr 12, 2002)

Whether you buy a queen or rear your own is your option and choice based on your objectives and resources. 

Buying a queen does not guarantee success nor does rearing your own guarantee failure.


There are ways to increase the odds of success and improving the quality of the out come of either option.


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## Jeffrey Todd (Mar 17, 2006)

Agreed, MC; and I agree with all of your points, Bjorn; I was merely pointing out the cons of ordering queens (especially for a newbee) as no one else had yet done, but of course there are the pros you and others have mentioned.


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## dug_6238 (May 9, 2007)

*Queenless splits and even supercedures mated with local stock*

I posted a photo and some of my own results in the photos forum at this link: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?p=315396#post315396

But here's pretty much what I said...
The frame shown was from a colony with a queen that was raised by the bees themselves, no itervention from me, open mated with whatever was around in the area. 

Ok, let me back up. This was a Russian colony with a drone laying queen, for which I ordered a replacement. The replacement got off to a pretty slow start, and a month or so later I looked in, and she was gone, replaced with a more Italian looking queen (but much darker than my other Italians), and beginning to lay.

I didn't have the heart to combine them with another colony, and I was curious to see how this queen would turn out. I fed per the MountainCamp Method and limped them through the winter. It cost me under 10 lbs of sugar, and I'm ready to add a 3rd deep and a 2nd super. It's hard to consider this a waste at the hobbyist level.

As another example, if you look at the photo, you'll see the tops of a mother and daughter colony, mother colony on the right (last year's package, 3 deep w/ 2 supers). To its left is one of 2 splits that I took from that colony. This daughter colony got the younger queen cells, and another colony that I have back here at the house got the older queen cells. I'm sure you can imagine the outcome yourself. Daughter colony with younger cells is now 3 deep with one super, other colony with older cells was weak over winter, and is now stalled with brood on only 3 frames.

There are winners and loosers from each deal. My better queens from last year will provide a chance for me to see if I can raise better queens for the couple failures that I had last year. If you're ready to graft or whatever, give it a try. If you're not at that skill level yet, try letting your bees help you out with it. Either way will work and you will see some success and some failure from both. Don't forget to work on diversity though. I had packages from different sources last year, and also got some local stock (15 miles away) through swarms. Always be looking for a way to improve. This method works, but someday you will want to try grafting and raising that way. Don't be afraid to mix in some of someone else's stock in with yours, even try some of Mike's (Bjorn Apiaries) stock...but also be aware that splits can do it on their own with moderate (and every now and then even better) success. Your schedule just ends up being a little different. My bees continued produceing honey during the time I was in queen development and mating, and many wintered well.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

BjornBee said:


> Dan, you raise your queens this way? I would of thought you grafted and had a more proficient system in place?.


Actually, this is less a method of queen production and more of a swarm management tool that I use.


BjornBee said:


> I would find that making my queens from splitting all my hives in this manner would give me a queen quality from across the spectrum of every hive. I find that selecting my best hives to graft from allows me to select the best of the best, and allows me to control mating quality with drone genetics and queen source..


I'd surely find it hard to argue with that.
I keep notes on the maternal source for each split. And I put the splits in selected beeyards. So, I do have whatever control I choose over the queen source and drone pool.
My eyes won't let me graft. I buy queen cells and queens from a variety of sources. I bought a graftless queen rearing device last winter and hoped to use it this season but may have to wait until next year. 

On the other hand I bought a number of packages recently from a well known supplier. I installed them a couple of weeks ago. I've already had 20% of the queens fail. Soooooo....I'd tell you from this and many other experiences that my queenless splits are more reliable at producing decent queens than many of the commercial queen producers. Also, its pretty often that I can't schedule my splits to fit a queen supplier's delivery. Its a fairly reliable means to make divides and any queen issues can be addressed later. My point from my original post was that queenless splits aren't necessarily a bad thing....in my opinion.


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