Robert Mann wrote:

>         What think ye of the Pauper's Split?

We covered this in great detail a couple of years ago or maybe it was
even more than that. Anyway, it is in the archives and the method you
describe is similar to that I and many others practice. It is mostly a
hobby beekeeper practice, since you have a long queenless, eggless and
beeless stage. Commercial beekeepers cannot afford that for either honey
production and especially pollination. The hive is effectively out of
operation for well over a month and the practice is much more labor
intensive than popping in a new queen.

The basic argument was in the quality of the queen produced. After a lot
of discussion, there seemed to be some agreement that if the hive was in
a strong, spring/early summer honey flow and was robust, you got good
queens so the method was probably alright. Later in the year was
questionable.

So if you are a commercial pollinator and tried this, it would be right
in the middle of pollination season so you could not do it. And if you
try it later, you might get inferior queens.

Bill Truesdell
Bath, ME