Got into a hive that had lots of caped queen cells and frames full of brood. The queen flew off a frame when I was going to catch her to make a split. Yesterday. This was a lat July split I made and over wintered in a double 5 frame with candy board.

So today I checked again found a queen caught her then saw another queen and realized they were hatching. So grabbed a queen cassel and put a rlfram of drawn comb and one with queen cells in each section closed it m over it closer to the house.

One box got a queen I saw that had hatched. I and have queen cells in the hive I took them from so hopefully in a week I will have 5 laying queens to make nuks with.

I also have the first queen I saw in a queen cage above a queen excluder in the box from the hive she was in. Hopefully tomorrow I can check that hive and another queen will have hatched and I can make a nuke with the extra.

Sadly I need laying queens now so will be picking up two tonight. I need 3 but will combine a swarm that's in a trap for the 3rd one.

If all goes well I will have more hives than I want/ have time to manage.

Bees are so much to learn and experiment with. Very exciting and also heart breaking. I never thought I would be so consumed with insects I wouldn't be able to get to sleep thinking about what needs done.

I agree , bees are interesting. Have 4 hives , was checking the other day. They are very strong. I need to split them back before they swarm. I can get mated queens this saturday. Haven't seen any queen cells yet. I am finding it harder to keep up when you start to get more colonys. Have not sold nucs, yet, may try this year. bee safe old243

Just wait a week or two and grab the queen cells and make nucs out of those. Swam cells make great queens. Especially if they have overwintered there.

Unless you know a local (northern) queen dealer, most of what you buy (california queens) are junk for our northern climates.

I refused to buy bees anymore...and found the ones we make (even just grabbing swarm cells) are far superior to what we typically buy.

Give the splits in the queen castle at least 14 days before you go back into them. Disturbing them before she is back and laying can cause them to ball the virgin. It is not a common thing but does happen