I made some splits earlier this year and let the queenless hives raise their own queens. We shall see how they perform over time. They look just fine physically.

The original hives were top bar, so in advance of the splitting, I removed a couple of combs in the brood nest so that they would be sure to have some freshly-built, soft comb in there. After I removed the queens, sure enough, they built several of their cells on that new, soft comb.

Adam