> how about
> simply NOT giving the eggs at all to the split for a few days so that
> the "orphaned" bees become desperate for a missing mother, to wax the
> rhetoric?

Not a bad idea at all.  The only problem is that, at some times, and
under some conditions, bees will abandon splits made with no open brood.
If the splits are confined or held in the dark for several days, it
could work.

As to the original discussion, I never did get a clear answer to the
question about emergency cells, but I did conclude as follows:

Different strains of bees under differing conditions will give different
results if dequeened suddenly.  Some will raise an A1 queen, some will
raise an intercaste, and some will remain queenless.

I suspect that the quality of the resulting queen -- assuming good queen
rearing conditions otherwise -- depends not only on the age when the
worker larva is 'crowned' (selected to be queen), but also depends on
the parent stock and drones in the region.  Again, if the bees and
others in the region are bees that have been proagated this way over the
years and are not special hybrids or incompatible strains, then the
result will likely be satisfactory.

I think that the reports of really bad emergency queen results come from
bees that have been split and left to requeen themselves at a time when
the colonies are weak or confined by weather, lacking a flow, or the
bees were of a sort that tend to have poor offspring or bad crosses.

Thanks for the flashback.

allen
http://www.honeybeeworld.com

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