[Oldtimer]

Early release of the queen would not be a good idea in these circumstances, best just let her be released in the normal way of bees eating the candy.

You do not give dates or a time frame for any of this so it is not possible to know if the hive has a virgin or not. However to answer your last question, yes you should check the last frame of brood you added for queen cells. If they have not built any it means the hive either has a virgin queen, or laying workers, both of which will mean the bees will kill the introduced queen.

However if they do have queen cells and they have not yet hatched, that is good. It means you can destroy the queen cells and safely introduce the caged queen.

 

[Oldtimer]

Kevin there are a number of scenarios and without seeing the hive in person it is not possible to say which with 100% certainty.

However based on your pics and what you have said, it is most likely the queen was killed on release, or no good. The queen cells you found are probably the result of some laying worker eggs, bees in a hopelessly queenless situation will sometimes raise queen cells using drone brood, of course these queen cells do not amout to anything and the larvae normally die around capping time.

If there was a virgin in the package she could have failed to mate.

Re the new brood you have added, check it for queen cells on day 3 or 4. By that time any cells started should be obvious but bear in mind they could be very small still so look out for any small cups with a larva in. If there are queen cells it means the hive is definately queenless and you will be free to introduce a laying queen, after destroying the queen cells.

 

[Oldtimer]

It's a gamble. If the hive is queenless the caged queen will be fine in there. But if there is some kind of queen or laying workers, she can be damaged such as having her feet bitten if stored in a cage in the hive.

However if you put the brood frame in thursday, a check the following sunday or monday (3 or 4 days later) for queen cells will be fine and you can then determine if it is safe to introduce the caged queen. In fact it would not be a good idea to leave the queen cell check to the following sunday, (10 days later), because 10 days is just enough time for bees to get a queen cell through to hatching, if they started with an older larva, which they sometimes do. (queens development from egg to hatch is 16 days. The egg hatches day 4, and a larva up to 3 days old can make a queen, means bees can have a hatched queen cell in 10 days).

So best plan would be check for cells sunday or monday, hopefully there will be some. Kill them and introduce the caged queen in the normal way at that time.

 

[Oldtimer]

OK that is not the news we want. Yes it should have been long enough (thursday to sunday) for them to start queen cells. For some reason the bees think they have a queen. Could it be they raised one on the previous comb of brood you gave them to hold them?

It is very likely that if you introduce the bought queen they will kill her. Do you have another hive strong enough to make a split and introduce the queen to that instead, even if just temporaray?

 

[Oldtimer]

Agree with JWPalmer, it is possible.

 

[Oldtimer]

Most likely the brood will prevent laying workers but it is normally thought that it takes open brood for 7 to 14 days to reverse laying workers. However your hive is not too far down the laying worker track, if it has laying workers at all, so just the one frame of open brood may do it.

It is just not possible to say if the best option is to put the queen cage in the hive because we still don't know the full situation in there. It's sort of a crap shoot, because a queen cage with candy and escorts can normally be stored outside the hive for over a week, but we don't know how long your queen was already caged for before you got it. So either option has risk.

As per JWPalmer it is just possible your hive may take a longer time frame to start queen cells. Would be unusual, but does happen. The happiest outcome might be that when your queen arrives, you take another look at that brood comb, and this time, queen cells have been started, which would be problem solved.
But if that does not happen, then you could risk leaving the queen caged in the hive, but it is a risk. But so is the option of leaving it outside the hive, not knowing how long it has already been caged. If it was me I would leave it somewhere like the hot water cylinder cupboard where there will be a not too cold temperature. However if you felt better leaving it in the hive, you could do that. If you do leave it in the hive, leaving some candy in the cage would be best because if the bees do not feel queenless, they will not feed her. If you do go that route, the candy should be to the bottom or towards the bottom, just so no stickiness can go running down the cage.

Wish i and others could be more help, but anyhow, let's see what you find on the brood comb when the queen arrives.

 

[Oldtimer]

To me the queen cell looks more like a dud but can't be 100% on that from the pic, how about check it in a few days and see if it has been torn down, if not try to get a pic of the grub.

Pic 3 i think i can just make out multiple eggs in a cell. Can you do a pic that shows the eggs better?