queen cell, no drones!

[Ben Brewcat]

I put some brood from a cutout in an established hive whose queen still wasn't laying a week ago, though she looked fine. Sure enough, there's a queen cell (not yet capped) and two developed cups this week all with larvae. And the existing queen nowhere to be found. However, I'm worried the virgin'd mate poorly as I've seen NO drones. There are a few drone cells in the cutout nuc's brood area. So I debated, then scraped the queen cell, leaving the two full cups to become queens. My theory was to set them back a bit until more drones are flying so she can mate better.

Foolish or OK, pinching that cell? If it was a disaster I can grab more brood from the nuc to get this hive a queen... I know, I know it'll be OK in the end, but I wanna learn! Pros/Cons/feedback?

[BerkeyDavid]

Hi Ben

My guess is that you will have drones by the time your queen is ready to mate, even if not from your hives.

[tecumseh]

ben brewcat ask...
Foolish or OK, pinching that cell?

tecumseh adds:
sounds like your call ben. my quess is you are likely only loosing a day or so anyway, five at the max.

[Michael Bush]

Let the bees do their thing. They've been doing it a long time now.