[Chez29]

Installed 2 packages saw both queens and eggs and larvae on May 11. May 25 one hive doing great loads of capped brood saw queen other hive no queen, no eggs, no larvae and 6 or so queen cells all capped. Plan is to see if I get a viable queen from cells and if I do swap a frame of brood from good hive to prop up new queen hive. Does this sound like a ok plan? I'm a noob so any advice is welcome

 

[Richinbama]

Sounds like a good plan. I'd get rid of all but the best 2 queen cells though. The first one out should dispose of the others. But, what if they all emerge close t ogather. Allot of fighting, who wins, and what if all end up damaged. With 2 ,1 will surely get mated

 

[Nelsonhoneyfarms]

Sounds like a good plan to me. 👍 be sure and give her plenty of time to mate - I’d wait 2 weeks after emergence before the first egg check.

 

[Chez29]

Thanks for the responses. I saw other references to cull the number down but am wondering if it's better to just stay out of there since I'm not sure on timing of emergence, and it's 3 more days past, and just leave them alone for 2 weeks

 

[nhoyt]

First package I had did the same thing, lose queen she wasnt a great one. Let them make a queen and she turned out to be amazing, very docile and prolific layer. Best luck.

 

[beemandan]

I didn't read the initial post very well....and my reply was not appropriate.
Edit to remove.

 

[Nelsonhoneyfarms]

Thanks for the responses. I saw other references to cull the number down but am wondering if it's better to just stay out of there since I'm not sure on timing of emergence, and it's 3 more days past, and just leave them alone for 2 weeks

They should stay capped for 8 days, and it’s been 3 days, so there’s a decent chance that they have emerged. I’d probably just wait it out if it were me, but that’s only because I’ve screwed it up several times in the past by taking a peek inside during these times.

 

[Chez29]

Well was out watering some plants near my hives noticed a clump of bees on ground about 25 yards from hives. This was around 7:00 with chance of rain approaching and cooler temps overnight, had frost this am. Since I'm just starting I didn't have equipment for another hive but rigged some up best I could tried to get swarm gathered as best I could, which wasn't well seeing how they were in prairie grass remnants from last year. After getting them in as best as I could a good chunk gathered near the entrance to my quenless hive. I'm assuming that where they came from. If multiple queen cells hatched would one flee with a group of bees instead of fighting. And if they left would they bee welcomed back by the remaining bees or is it civil war time. Really not a clue with what is going on there

 

[JWPalmer]

Assuming you accidentally killed the queen during the inspection on May 11th, and your cells were still capped on the 25th, the timing works out right for a virgin to have emerged around the 27th and be out getting mated today. You may have found her and her entourage as they were attempting to get back to the hive.