[Michael Palmer]

I like to requeen by creating a 2 queen colony. Use the top brood box as your nuc. It must have honey and brood in all stages.

Remove any supers. Remove the frames from the top brood box, shaking off all the bees as you go. Remove empty box. Replace supers.

Place excluder on supers, then empty top brood box, then honey and brood frames in original order. Cover overnight.

Next day replace excluder with inner cover...escape hole taped closed, rim up entrance notch to rear of hive. Give caged queen.

Old bees fly below, young bees accept queen easily. Leave queen for 3 weeks to establish broodnest and increase the total number of frames of brood in the colony...2 queens laying. Go below and kill old queen(s) and unite.

 

[Michael Palmer]

the original question adressed re-queening and making a divide. Ernie

I see, now that I've re-read the post. He could split the hive and still requeen without de-queening. I really like the idea of having 2 queens laying for added population. Also...how many times have you requeened only to find the new queen isn't very good. Having 2 queens laying allows you to check the new queen before killing the old.

I do some direct requeening, but mostly with nucs.

 

[Michael Palmer]

True, but why are you requeening in the first place? Because you have decided the queen is obviously no good?