[Mdjohn]

I have read and watched everything I can get my hands on about making good queens, just about every one says you need a finishing hive with all the young house bee's you can spare or put into your hive so they will feed the cells and feed them well.
If you put a frame of eggs in a Queen less hive will you end up with a Queen that will be any good? If hives are weak like most are when they have no Queen how can they feed the cells like a good strong hive can to get good strong Queens?

 

[merince]

The finishing hive is a strong hive that is made queenless. It is usually strengthened by adding extra frames of nurse bees as you have mentioned.

Once a hive becomes queenless, it does not immediately become weak. It becomes weak as its population ages and dies off if there isn't a queen to provide replacements (or a beekeeper to bring over frames of brood from a queen right hive).

 

[Mdjohn]

Yes I know what a finishing hive is all i'am asking will they make a good Queen or do you only add eggs to a strong hive

 

[merince]

The best queens come from strong hives. Even weaker hives will make decent queens. The hive will do they best they can with what they have. It helps to tip the odds in their favor, though.

How weak is your hive? I wouldn't expect 2-3 frames of bees that have been queenless for a while to raise a decent queen.

 

[WBVC]

I may be wrong but what I thought the question was getting at is...if say you make up a nuc and give them eggs, open brood, capped brood covered with bees and pollen and nectar covered with bees will they make a decent Queen.

 

[stan.vick]

I may be wrong but what I thought the question was getting at is...if say you make up a nuc and give them eggs, open brood, capped brood covered with bees and pollen and nectar covered with bees will they make a decent Queen.

Yes, but even a good hive that makes a good queen can remain queenless if a hornet or bird gets her on her mating flight. I can usually expect 25% of the time that the queen will be lost somehow. Some years I get good results some years not so good. Now I open the hive ten days after placing the eggs in and harvest one or two of the spare queen cells and put them in a small mating nuc with a pint or two of nurse bees and a frame of food, in case I need a backup queen.

 

[WBVC]

Yes, but even a good hive that makes a good queen can remain queenless if a hornet or bird gets her on her mating flight. I can usually expect 25% of the time that the queen will be lost somehow. Some years I get good results some years not so good. Now I open the hive ten days after placing the eggs in and harvest one or two of the spare queen cells and put them in a small mating nuc with a pint or two of nurse bees and a frame of food, in case I need a backup queen.

So am I correct in thinking that when a Queen dies or is killed the hive will usually try and replace her from early larvae that arise from her eggs. If this happens and the QC is a dud or the virgin doesn't get mated and back laying then there is no longer open brood to start another round of QC and the hive is doomed unless one intervenes.

 

[merince]

So am I correct in thinking that when a Queen dies or is killed the hive will usually try and replace her from early larvae that arise from her eggs. If this happens and the QC is a dud or the virgin doesn't get mated and back laying then there is no longer open brood to start another round of QC and the hive is doomed unless one intervenes.

Correct. This is a "hopelessly queenless hive". Also, a hive like this starts to dwindle fairly quickly, because time-wise, all the bees are at least a month old and they have graduated to foragers.

Personally, when making nucs I give them a ripe queen cell (about ready to emerge) or I leave the queen with them and I let the original hive raise the replacement.