# Wanting to start an OH, using a queenless split?



## Gilligan (May 8, 2013)

Is this normal or practical?

Should I use a queen cell that I cut out or should I just put them in there with a frame of young larva and eggs?

I'm hoping this will allow me to watch the whole process. Is this doable?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

The downside is the dwindling that will happen while they rear a new queen. The upside is you get to see them rear a new queen. You may need to boost them with some emerging brood somewhere along the line, or some shaken nurse bees in an empty box hooked up to the hose at night so they wander in.


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## Gilligan (May 8, 2013)

Michael Bush said:


> The downside is the dwindling that will happen while they rear a new queen. The upside is you get to see them rear a new queen. You may need to boost them with some emerging brood somewhere along the line, or some shaken nurse bees in an empty box hooked up to the hose at night so they wander in.


Could I not just load the hive up with various stages of frames? Eggs and queen ripe larva, freshly capped brood, honey/pollen/stores, maybe a blank frame or two to watch them draw wax.

I was thinking of making it three double wide mediums tall (6 total frames).


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Could I not just load the hive up with various stages of frames? Eggs and queen ripe larva, freshly capped brood, honey/pollen/stores, maybe a blank frame or two to watch them draw wax.

Of course you will want to, but by the time they raise a queen and she's laying they will no longer have any brood at all, open or capped. Observation hives tend to boom or bust and need to be helped more often.

>I was thinking of making it three double wide mediums tall (6 total frames). 

I would want to watch them make the queen and the queens fight etc. The odds of seeing it in a double wide are much lower. Much more will take place between the frames than ever takes place on the outsides of the frames so you will only see a fraction of the action. The bees are certainly stressed less, but then it defeats some of the reasons I want an observation hive. Mine are all one frame wide and four frames high for a total of four medium frames. Some started out as something else, but I converted them all to mediums.


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