Getting a hive queenright.

[WillH]

I found one of my hives queenless yesterday, no brood no eggs. So I introduced a frame with eggs from another hive. If they start building queen cells on that frame, that will confirm that the hive is queenless. If that is the case I plan to combine this hive with a nuc with a nice laying queen.

I have 2 questions on how to proceed:

1. When should I look for queen cells on the frame that I introduced yesterday?

2. If they start queen cells, do I have to destroy those before combining?

Thanks for your help.

[fish_stix]

Why not just let them raise a queen if they start cells?

[Joseph Clemens]

If they don't start queen cells, that does not necessarily mean they aren't queenless, it could simply mean they think they are queenright -- this can happen if laying workers have taken the place of a proper queen. If they are most recently queenless, then they will likely raise a few queen cells in an effort to become queenright.

[ralittlefield]

This link may help you.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm

[WillH]

Thank you very much for your input. Today (48 hours later) I opened the hive to see the progress of the queen cells. There were none. I was thinking may be there were no eggs on that frame. But I still could see an egg or two. I was very confused. I was thinking of laying workers. But......surprise...surprise....who did I see on the frame? A queen

This queen emerged on June 20th ( I know the exact date as I checked this hive on 19th and 21st) and I was thinking that by Saturday (19 days after) I should have seen eggs. According to Michael Bush she should have started laying on 12th day after emerging. May be eggs are there but I missed them. I am going to wait a week and do another inspection just to make sure she started laying.

[Michael Bush]

TYPICALLY she would start to lay 12 to 14 days after emerging. But sometimes as early as four or five days or as late as 21 days...