# Baffled by split



## zombeek (Dec 30, 2015)

2nd year beekeeper so splits are pretty new to me
I made a split of a healthy hive on 05/25 ish. Put a few frames of brood and stores in a nuc box along with the queen. Checked back a few days later saw queen cells in the original hive so I figured all was working as it should be.
Today I checked and found eggs, a queen (very dark colored) and larvae. I also made sure that the original queen was still in her nuc just to verify she did not somehow return to the original hive. I thought it took about a month to have a laying queen?

1. Did I not add correctly or is this about the right time frame? 
2. There is also another capped queen cell. Should I leave it alone or feed it to another hive that has a weak queen?


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## jcolon (Sep 12, 2014)

Are you sure there was no queen cells when you removed the old queen?
I think you missed it. She emerged that same day, or the next. Got mated a couple days later and got right on the job. Is 16 days since you removed the queen. Enough time for a virgin to fly, mate and start laying.


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## tech.35058 (Jul 29, 2013)

zombeek said:


> 2. There is also another capped queen cell. Should I leave it alone or feed it to another hive that has a weak queen?


This cell may be a dud. considering a laying queen present.
shine a strong flashlight through it, can you see larva there?
Even if you see a bee inside the cell, I doubt it will emerge.
Good Luck with your bees. CE


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

When you checked a few days later on the split, where the queen cells capped or being built? How much was a few days too? I would tend to believe jcolon's theory. I could see an older larva used to make a queen, capped on the 29th or 30th, emerged on the 6th, but even that would be way way fast. you did write 25th ish. Ish is iffy, so maybe it was the 20th - 22nd ish. As long as you have a laying queen, good deal.


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