# Talk to me about splits



## mbear

This late in the year you might want to just buy a queen and save yourself three weeks. After all, you need to build it up enough to survive the winter.


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## Arbol

buy a queen, there is not enough time to let them raise a queen on their, at 45 days from egg to laying eggs, and 24 days for a brood cycle that puts you in November with a fresh queen an not anywhere near enough brood to survive. 
buying a queen now will get your colony to the brood amount needed to survive, Sept 1st is the latest I've had a requeened colony survive, but that was in San Diego SoCal back in the 70's


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## Slow Drone

The OP is in NC not much different than TN. I make up nucs to overwinter first week in August some with queen cells and some walk aways. I raise queens until mid September The OP has plenty of time.


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## WD9N

I just did some late splits myself. In this area about June 15 is the latest one wants to split and let them raise a queen. I purchased some Pol-Line queens from a local producer to make up splits on July 17. I moved 2 frames of capped brood and nurse bees and added the queens on 7/17, 7/29 I moved them into 10 frame boxes because they had the nucs packed.

My thought: Knowing you are late in the season, why not move the old queen into a nuc with some brood and stores, leaving some fresh eggs in the existing colony?

Do they not have a better work force and way better resources to make a good queen?

Would the brood break help with varroa going into winter?

With the old queen in the nuc, a few workers drifting to the nuc from the larger colony wouldn't be as big an issue as workers drifting from a queenless nuc back to the larger, queenright colony?

The colony is already honey bound, so a brood break is pretty well already in progress isn't it?


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