Adding Queen to a split

[Rogan]

Pardon me if this has already been posted before.  I plan to split two hives and will be purchasing 2 new queens for those splits which are queenless.  No, I don't plan to wait for them to raise a new queen for various reasons.  I understand the split needs to be queenless for at least 24 hours before introducing the new queens.  My problem (not sure if it really is a problem) is that my queens arrive Thursday.  I can only do the split Sunday.  Is that time to wait too long?  I realize I will need to check for queen cells and destroy them before the queen cage is introduced, but I wasn't sure if I didn't have "fresh" brood, if that would be a problem.

[Finski]

.
If the colony is queenless 5 days, it caps the emergency cells. Then they accept very easily a new queen.

[sc-bee]

No problem. But the colony does not have to be queenless for 24hrs. It is just a good practice.

Let me give you a similar example: I want to split a colony. I can not find the queen. I split it and in three days come back and do an inspection. The half with the new eggs has the queen. I take the other half and destroy any queen cells that may be started and re-queen that half. Not the same but a similar example.

[Michael Bush]

Overnight is best,  That can be significantly less than 24 hours... 2 hours will do.

You can keep queens for a week or two by just giving them a drop of water a day and keeping them in a quiet dark place.  As long as the attendants are doing fine, the queen is probably fine.