# Split May 11, when to check for brood



## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

Definitely wait longer than you want; http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearing.htm


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## DaisyNJ (Aug 3, 2015)

3 weeks from today.


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## RayMarler (Jun 18, 2008)

I would check the weekend of June 10th.


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## DanielD (Jul 21, 2012)

Yes, June 1o weekend at the earliest. Look for areas of cleaned and polished cells at the time too. If you see that but no eggs/larva, the queen should be almost there.

In the future, it would be better to just take away the queen in a nuc and let the remaining strong colony produce several queen cells till capped, then split more according to your resources and cells, and how many you want. Stronger colonies can make better queens.


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## Saltybee (Feb 9, 2012)

DanielD said:


> Stronger colonies can make better queens.


 "The 10 frame had several, the nucs none."


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## bjorn (Aug 7, 2013)

The splits were for swarm control. The nucs were made up by splitting in half one box from an overwintered hive. The 10 frame split was from a different overwintered hive. The only reason I didn't just do 2 ten frame splits was lack of equipment. I realize the strong queenless colony will make the best queens. This is exactly why I transplanted some of those nice queen cells into the nucs. The split that made the queen cells is from a swarm I received last year from a mother colony that has weathered several of our winters. I figure, better odds of survival versus the packages I've been getting. I'll wait until around the 10th to check. Thanks.


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## bjorn (Aug 7, 2013)

I looked the other day and 2 of 3 splits had nice brood patterns. The 3rd appears to be a bit behind the other 2, having only eggs. I'll keep an eye on the 3rd to make sure it's a laying queen and not a laying worker.


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## c-bees (Jun 1, 2017)

bjorn said:


> I looked the other day and 2 of 3 splits had nice brood patterns. The 3rd appears to be a bit behind the other 2, having only eggs. I'll keep an eye on the 3rd to make sure it's a laying queen and not a laying worker.


The 3rd one is most likely a queen. They usually have to be queenless at least 6 weeks to develop laying workers. Also, how many eggs per cell? One egg in the middle of the cell means queen, since laying workers lay more than one egg per cell and they aren't in the center, they are all around the side walls.


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## bjorn (Aug 7, 2013)

c-bees said:


> The 3rd one is most likely a queen. They usually have to be queenless at least 6 weeks to develop laying workers. Also, how many eggs per cell? One egg in the middle of the cell means queen, since laying workers lay more than one egg per cell and they aren't in the center, they are all around the side walls.


I was having trouble seeing them. It was a bright sunny day. I thought I may have seen a couple with multiple eggs, but my eyes may have deceived me. Like I said, I'll check back again. 

I did just lose a hive a week ago that definitely had multiple eggs per cell. No bees to speak of, just a bunch of cells with multiple eggs and some young brood. I'm guessing the queen died and they just slowly died off. They never really bounced back after winter.


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