# I Split my Hive, Not Seeing a New Queen



## ruthiesbees (Aug 27, 2013)

adding a bar of young larvae and eggs is always a safe bet. That way the bees can raise a new queen if the other one is missing. You still have a couple of weeks before the old one is out of time to mate (21 days from emerging). You can also add a bar of emerging brood if you are concerned about the number of bees in the hive. Could be when you did the split that lots of them returned to the old spot. Another trick is to swap hive positions, but not always doable with large topbar hives.


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## JeronimoJC (Jul 21, 2016)

+1 on adding a frame with eggs for peace of mind. 

Likely you are okay though. Virgin queens are hard to find. I never found the virgins in three different hives, after carefully looking for them at least twice. Once they were matted I had no problems finding them.


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## Labow (Mar 10, 2016)

Thanks for the advice.

Also, I think I should clarify. I put the split into a nuc, so it's not a full hive. I have two full hives, one of which I split, let's call the one I split hive A, and the other hive B. Hive A is where the numbers have dwindled, and where I'm trying to find the queen. 

I'll add a frame of brood in the next couple of days. My question in my original post was should I take the bar from the nuc, or from hive B? I don't know if it matters, but thought I'd clarify.

The weather around here has been pretty cloudy/cool for the past couple of weeks, could that impact when the new queen takes her mating flight?


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## cohutt (Feb 13, 2017)

If you moved the queen cells into new hive B and left the old queen in the original hive there is a good chance they swarmed anyway. 
I may not be following what you did completely though.


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## Labow (Mar 10, 2016)

sorry for the delay. I posted a response yesterday, but for some reason it didn't post. So let me clarify a bit more. I haven't done anything with hive B. I took the queen out of hive A and put her and some bees into a nuc, and left hive A to raise a new queen from the 10 or so queen cells it had. 

So, I guess my question now is if it matters where I take the brood from to put into hive A? Should I take it from the nuc or from hive B. I'm thinking since the nuc is small I should take from hive B?


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## Pokeyjeeper (Jul 10, 2017)

Is there any capped brood in hive a and if your going to take a bar to help hive a out take it from hive b if that hive is doing great but how full is the nuc getting


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## Labow (Mar 10, 2016)

I didn't see any capped brood in hive A when I was up there a couple of days ago. I'm going to go back up today and take a look since it's sunny. And hive B is doing great, so I'll take it out of there. Should I look for brood at a certain stage (egg, small large, about to be capped, capped)? 

The nuc is getting pretty full, and I'll check on that today too. If it's too full and I have to take something out of it to give them room maybe I'll just take brood from there if it's available.


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## Labow (Mar 10, 2016)

I just wanted to reply and close out this thread. I checked the hive a week later and saw eggs, so the hive was successful in raising a new queen.


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