Ok, Iam going to split my hive this week, and take five frames from my original hive and stick them in a another deep super. My question is - if you don't have access to a queen breeder, can you just let the new hive raise their own? I mean, they'd be queenless, so wouldn't they start building queen cells? It would be a virgin queen of course, and there is the chance she would get lost or eaten on her mating flight. Would the bees stay in the new hive w/out a queen, or would they leave to the old one (only a couple of feet away)? I figure that they would stay, because the brood would be there. Rather than starting a nuc and raising a queen to stick in this artificial swarm.
Also, where do you recommend placing the new hive? I was thinking that it would be nice to have all of my hives centralized, you know all in one spot. But then if you have them all in a line then disease can spread from one to the next. Should I keep them centralized or spread out over my five acres?