You do not need to find the queen to do an AS!
To do it without finding her
Take new brood box with new foundation and ideally one frame with drawn foundation (for her to start laying in), and place in original hive location)
Empty/brush ALL bees into this new box and when all in place a QX on top.
Then take the orginal brood box (now empty of bees) and place it on top of the QX in original brood box location(with eggs brood etc in) , with crown board supers etc as normal
So you now know you have the queen in the base section on new foundation (as you want for a AS)
Very quickly the nurse bees (non flying bees) will move upstairs to nurse the brood and you QC (s)
Next day, move this top section to a new location as a new hive.
Apologies to whoever wrote this last year....I pinched it for reference.
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