[Richinbama]

They will realize they are queenless very fast. If you pull a frame qith the queen on it. They know writhing a few minutes throughout the hive, in my experience . I'd say a few days and they will use young larve to make a cell. It's fairly fast, it takes about 3 weeks from q.c. build, to camping, then hatch, then a few days for her to harden up, then the mating flights, then look ing go eggs in about 3-4 weeks. I like to add a frame of capped brood each week till eggs are laid, and till they start to hatch out. Will help keep population up till they have their own brood / nurse&worker bees in place. Hope this helps. I'm 2nd yr. Keeper, and still learning too. Good luck.... rich

 

[aran]

They will realize they are queenless very fast. If you pull a frame qith the queen on it. They know writhing a few minutes throughout the hive, in my experience . I'd say a few days and they will use young larve to make a cell. It's fairly fast, it takes about 3 weeks from q.c. build, to camping, then hatch, then a few days for her to harden up, then the mating flights, then look ing go eggs in about 3-4 weeks. I like to add a frame of capped brood each week till eggs are laid, and till they start to hatch out. Will help keep population up till they have their own brood / nurse&worker bees in place. Hope this helps. I'm 2nd yr. Keeper, and still learning too. Good luck.... rich

i actually like the idea of adding capped brood to the split periodically although weekly seems like overkill probably.
Certainly the population will have dwindled a bit by the time the queen starts laying but i have not seen it drop to the point that the split fails. Having said that i may try a few of the splits im making this week and add a frame of capped brood after 2 weeks to keep the population up.