Raising new queen or buy mated?

[Ironets]

Saw simular posts.. Still not sure what to do.
I have 1 hive with 2 deeps, which I started with packaged bees very late spring. Everything was going fine, until I went on 2 week vacation. Upon return, yesterday, I found out that the queen is missing (triple checked), and what appears to be several emergency( or supercedure) capped cells built. My thought initially that I need by introduce a new mated queen asap, however, my beekeeper friend tells me; that since my colony already raising their own queen, new queen will be killed and let the nature take its course.
Still see a lot of capped brood.

Should I let the bees continue raising their own queen, or introduce new mated queen and destroy new queen cells? Where is the less risk?
I am leaning into letting them raise, only because see plenty of brood..and if that won't workout for whatever reason, buy mated queen. My thinking is that I still have time.
What do you think?

[Charlie B]

I am leaning into letting them raise, only because see plenty of brood..and if that won't workout for whatever reason, buy mated queen. My thinking is that I still have time.
What do you think?

I would go with what you're thinking

[Katharina]

Let them raise their own. You should eventually go that route anyway. It is not cost effective to keep on buying queens or packages. Bees are quite good at it too. Keep an eye on it and check in a month for a new queen. If you don't see one add another frame of eggs and brood and let them try a second time. Most of the time they do get it right with the first round.

[geebob]

I've been dabbling with adding a few queens each year to improve my genetics (well, my BEES genetics to be more precise), and will probably continue to do so. However, my colonies have had much better success this year with supersedure queens than with mail-ordered queens. Could be the fault of the post office which waited three days before bothering to tell me they'd arrived, but all four of the new queens were gone within a month. Their replacements are all doing well.

[Grant]

I agree. Introducing a mated queen is not always 100% successful, and my queen-rearing buddy tells me more new beekeepers kill the queens they try and install due to many newbee mistakes. Then they call him and want the queen replaced.

If you do decide to go with a mated queen, you'll have to make sure you kill off those existing queen cells prior to introducing the mated queen.

Grant
Jackson, MO

[Ironets]

Thank you all for replies. I am feeling better about going forward with letting them raise on their own...hopefully it will workout at the end. Beekeping is a lot of fun.. reminds of Civillization strategy game minus computer.

[grozzie2]

Beekeping is a lot of fun.. reminds of Civillization strategy game minus computer.

If you want to spend some time figuring the 'strategy' behind your situation, start at the bee math page, and do a little arithmetic.

You left for 2 weeks, and came back to find capped cells. Assuming the bees started with a 3 day egg just hatching, then the cells were built between 5 and 13 days ago, because the bees started with 3 day egg/larvae. If those cells are an emergency queen, they will have started with 3 day egg / larvae. So, on the very outside, it's possible those cells are the result of rolling the queen on an inspection just before you left (assuming your two weeks gone, was indeed 14 days). Capped cells are between 8 and 16 days,, so they can emerge essentially anytime from today, to a week from now. Take the middle for this case, and the queen will emerge in 4 more days, then take 5 days before she goes out to mate, for a total of 9 days. Give her a couple more days to get 'in gear', and, you are expecting a laying queen in 2 weeks, with 3 weeks on the very outside long end.

On the other side, if you order a queen, it'll take 2 or 3 days to arrive, plus another day has been wasted here on beesource making up your mind, so to compare to the above math, it'll be 4 days (counting today) before you have a queen to introduce, assuming you go for rather quick shipping. Put the new cage in the hive, and, allow 3 days for her to be released, a week has gone by.

So, if you let them go, it'll be anywhere from a week, to 3 weeks before you see eggs in the hive. If you order a queen, it'll be a week.

So, the 'strategy' here is simple. Is it worth the cost of a queen, and shipping, for you to have a queen lay eggs for that extra week, because the bought queen will only have a week head start on the one they are building, and maybe not even that much if the cell emerges in the next or two ? If so, order one, and if not, wait and let nature do it's thing. If you dont see eggs in the hive 3 weeks from now, then it's likely a bad situation, but, you still have the option to order a replacement at that point, which is a completely different / new situation, queenless vs waiting on a cell to emerge.

[Ironets]

Thank you for the math lesson.. I am a real newbie with beekeeping and your timeline bring education to my guess. My beekeeping friend also suggests splitting my two deeps into two individual hives with capped cells in both, brood and honey. His rationale is that I still have enough bees to start two hives, and if it won't work for either hive with the queen, merge them together. Not sure about this.. Although makes séance in theory...

[Ironets]

You left for 2 weeks, and came back to find capped cells. Assuming the bees started with a 3 day egg just hatching, then the cells were built between 5 and 13 days ago, because the bees started with 3 day egg/larvae. If those cells are an emergency queen, they will have started with 3 day egg / larvae. So, on the very outside, it's possible those cells are the result of rolling the queen on an inspection just before you left (assuming your two weeks gone, was indeed 14 days). Capped cells are between 8 and 16 days,, so they can emerge essentially anytime from today, to a week from now. Take the middle for this case, and the queen will emerge in 4 more days, then take 5 days before she goes out to mate, for a total of 9 days. Give her a couple more days to get 'in gear', and, you are expecting a laying queen in 2 weeks, with 3 weeks on the very outside long end.

Thank you grozzie, so far your timeline you have calculated for me is working. I checked today and found a queen. Yes. All of queen cells are gone.. I couldn't find any.. Now I am not sure if the queen is mated or not, but she seems to just running around. I'll be checking for eggs in 4-5 days.

[mrobinson]

This "bit of math" is also, to my way of thinking, a lesson in why this notion of "immediately destroy a queen cell if you see one, 'cuz it must mean that they're about to swarm" ... just might not be such a good idea. I've routinely seen queen cells and drone cells and the bees are still right here. I think that from time to time they just start out these things "to have one or two of 'em on hand," because if they don't, and something untoward happens to Her Majesty, they're going to have quite a gap in larvae production. While I do not know such a thing to be true or false, it is intuitively appealing to me that Nature probably would design to do such a thing. I leave them alone and nothing has ever come of it.

And as for the queens once a hive has started, I know that there are feral bees in our woods and I want the gene pools to become more local than the "Italian mutts" that we originally seeded the hives with. Having "pulled a few strings" to get the hives so-to-speak "bootstrapped," I don't want to keep pulling strings. ("On your boat, however, we'll do it your way, Ca'pn ...")

[Michael Bush]

I would let them raise the queen.

[Mtn. Bee]

X2 with Mr. Bush as they already have the QC's going let them finish what they started and they may not except the new queen (if you bought one) as well since they already have QC's!