Nuc raised queens

[MethowKraig]

I had a couple mating nucs where the queen cell failed.

But the nucs raised a new cell.

Will the queen be acceptable or should I pitch it?

[tommyt]

They raised it from larva you put in the NUC?
If so yes let them finish their Job

[scdw43]

A queen that lays a wall to wall brood pattern is a good queen. Don't kill maybe the best queen in your yard, just because you don't know who her mother is. Let her have a chance.

[Keefis]

When I split my hive last month, I did not positively find all of the queen cells that were produced.
Point is the one that hatched first was a hidden one. So I was watching the wrong queen cell (it was in the front by the window)and the queen inside that cell was probably dead already. Early queen gets the job. They can use the eggs over a 3 day period at best so its possible to have one hatch before another.
When did you notice the new queen cell.? How many days between the first one and the new.

[MethowKraig]

I raised queen cells. (I use a variant of the Cloake system.)

When queen cells were ripe, I pulled two frame nucs (one frame bees, one frame larvae with bees) and installed cells to hatch.

Out of ten nucs, two failed, but raised their own queen cells from the frame of larvae.

I have no idea what age larvae they started with. Also, can a weak nuc raise a quality queen?

So I have two nucs with cells. I am unsure of the quality. But the cells look well formed.

[David LaFerney]

Define acceptable. Unless you need the equipment for something else hang on to her - and keep track of her. I label them "utility queens" - They produce brood, they build comb, they requeen swarms in a pinch, sometimes they are as good as any, sometimes better than most. You never know until you know. One thing for sure - they never spent half a week in a mailing envelope and another 3 days in a queen cage.

This is why you need several inexpensive nucs around - so you always have a place to stash a spare queen.