If you do the OTS notching in a queenright hive, will they make queen cells? I'm getting itchy to make a split and have one hive that has back filled most of the bottom deep and filled most of the top deep, but as of yesterday there are no queen cells in the hive. I figure with that much nectar filling the hive and the queen running out of room to lay in, that a swarm is pretty certain, right? I don't want to risk losing a swarm and our weather predicted for Sunday through most of next week doesn't look too good for checking hives, so if they start queen cells they may have them capped and swarm before I can get back in the hive. The weather looks decent for tomorrow and I was thinking about making a walk away split, 10 frames per split. The queen in this hive has always been next to impossible to find. I've seen her once this year and maybe a couple times last year. So, instead of looking for the queen, if I do a split I was thinking of just notching frames in both hives, but I don't want to encourage the queenright half of the split to make queen cells....
I have some drones in each colony but not an abundance of them. There is a good amount of capped drone brood (looked pretty freshly capped) in each hive that I checked yesterday. If I do a split tomorrow, will the drones that will be hatching in the next 12-14 days be fertile and flying by the time a queen cell hatches from the split?
Thanks for any advice and responses.
I have some drones in each colony but not an abundance of them. There is a good amount of capped drone brood (looked pretty freshly capped) in each hive that I checked yesterday. If I do a split tomorrow, will the drones that will be hatching in the next 12-14 days be fertile and flying by the time a queen cell hatches from the split?
Thanks for any advice and responses.