What do I have here?

[Laurence Hope]

I have a new 15 package yard of bees. All are doing well except one. Ten days ago, I noticed the one to be quite weak and upon examination, I found scattered capped drone brood. No other brood or eggs. I thought, perhaps, I had a drone laying queen. I put a frame of eggs from another into it, hoping they would raise a queen to supercede. Yesterday, I went there to feed and upon examination of this hive, I found the egg frame mostly capped with some already hatched. No queen cell. I looked and found some eggs, about 40 in cells adjacent to the capped brood. They appeared to be from a queen, being single and on the bottom of the cell. I looked further and did find a queen. She was fairly small, but larger than I expect a virgin queen would be.

Where do I go from here?
Thank you,

[Yuleluder]

If the hive is a drone layer, then you will need to squash her first. Then you can put another queen, or a frame of eggs into the hive. Try contacting the supplier of the packages for another queen.

[iddee]

Wait a week and see what the caps look on those eggs. Sounds like the new queen just started laying.

[Brent Bean]

I agree with iddee, I had a package with a dead queen in the introduction cage. I installed the package and called the supplier. There were no queens available in a timely manner so not to have them develop laying workers. I decided to combine them with another package then split them when a new queen arrived. It was two day before I could do this. When I opened the hive I found eggs and a nice fat queen laying them.
It’s possible that you had two queens in the package one old one young, the younger queen or the worker bee may have sorted out the pecking order.

[tecumseh]

I am with iddee and brent on this one Lawrence. sounds like the initial queen started out laying and fairly quickly reverted to a drone layer (which is not unusual). I would likely boost this hive with some (1 frame) sealed brood and give it a bit of time.

[Laurence Hope]

Thank you all.
I gather that the answer is to watch and see what these eggs develop into. If it still drones, requeen. If not go forward with the new queen. Meanwhile, add some brood.
Will do. Again, thanks,
Laurence

[Michael Bush]

Odds are if you give them some eggs and open brood they will supersede her.