We decided to go ahead and try to split one of our colonies and place a brood nucleus in our backyard. Within 4 days, the bees had begun raising queen cells throughout the hive. Then I waited for two weeks and then I made an inspection. I was pleased to discover that the queen had hatched, and the bees had begun "dismantling" all the queen cells.Within 10 days, the queen was laying eggs. She is very busy and the bees really thrived in our backyard. They drew out come at a very rapid pace, and the queen was eager to lay eggs in all available cells. Next year, the queen (we named her Babsi) should be running a very strong and successful hive. I was sad to have to move them back to the bee stand, but I needed to make room for our newest project: an artificial swarm. An artificial swarm is a method of hive splitting that is quite common after the last honey harvest. (By the way, our last harvest of the season yielded 17 kg / 35 pounds)The method is rather straig...