Hi Paul,

I must first preface my comments with the rider that I know absolutely
nothing about Scutellata bees so what follows may be absolute garbage in
your situation, but for what its worth here's my 5 bobs worth.
The conditions you describe are very similar to what we experience here in
Western Australia. The bees are different of course, but autumn requeening
in the manner you describe is a risky business with any hive bees,
especially if no fallback source of queens or cells is available. From what
you have said , it seems you have very few choices:-
1. Start contacting as many other beekeepers as possible in your part of the
world  to source an emergency supply of cells or queens. Lots of risks
attached to that too but you are the best judge there.
 2. Graft some queen cells into a strong cell starter colony (or better
still, several starters), and then, if successful,  transfer these (with
cell protectors!) to the queenless colonies.
3. Transfer some sections or complete frames of brood containing eggs or
young larvae into the queenless colonies, but in the normal orientation and
let the bees work them into the vertical queen cell orientation.
4. Accept the cause is lost if the colonies have declined past the point of
no return, and return them to the original apiary and paper them back on to
their original colonies.
Good luck mate!
Peter Detchon
PS Western Australian season is coming to a close too, but queen cells or
mated queens are still available here. Your biosecurity regulations may not
permit an import, and you may not  want Italian -style stock, but if you can
and you do, contact me off-list and I will assist you to source them from
here.This approach may salvage your splits until they can be requeened with
Scutellata in the spring.

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