Lately I've been in the process of raising queens for fall splits. I'm a bit late I'm afraid, even for southern bees since our fall pollen flow is on. But hopefully with sufficient feeding I'll keep them cranking all winter.
The new queen cells were caged on Tuesday prior to emerging. Upon opening the hive Tuesday, I found one virgin already out, and she had ripped open another cell and likely killed the queen inside. This killer virgin was out roaming around, so I caught and caged her too.
I'll check the rest of the cells this evening to see who all emerged and hopefully make a few splits. My goal is to split as many of my big colonies back as I can to carry mostly 5 frame nucs through the winter. Last year I was overly ambitious and it got the better of me. So I'm trying to be a bit more conservative this year, and only splitting a few, and splitting them with LOTS of bees and live queens to help the acceptance.