[cristianNiculae]

I have made a split with the old queen and left a powerful hive queen less which I also used as a finisher. Now I gave it one of the cells but I realized that I cannot use it for later production of queen cells as it will have a virgin queen.
I'm thinking to take out the cell and give them a mated queen instead today.

Should I give them their original queen? If so can I do a direct release?

I would prefer to give them a newly mated queen that I've noticed yesterday in one of my mating nucs. Will she be accepted at once as the hive is queen less for ~12 days?

I am more inclined to this method(direct release). I don't like cages at all.

And in general I want to understand the conditions under which a queen is very well accepted. I reckon in my case she will be at once. Am I wrong?

Thanks.

 

[RayMarler]

No, you're not wrong. If the one hive you remove the cell, they will be needing a queen. Just make sure there are no other cells. In 10 to 20 minutes they'll take a queen that is in laying condition, for example, a laying queen from a nuc or other hive. Just remove any cells in the one, then wait ten minutes, go to the nuc or hive and remove that queen and drop her over. Works for me, most times.

 

[cristianNiculae]

I've removed all QC's(I really hope so) before giving them the cell. I also played with some old queen, grabbing it by the wings and lowering it over the frames of some other nuc. It's so funny how bees react... like dogs raising their upper legs to reach the queen. You can tell they are desperate for a queen.

In general I'm more inclined on using straight forward practices that takes little time in order to relief some of the pressure exercised by my wife upon my new occupation.

Funny things happen when you have mating nucs all around. I've made a mistake on putting an old queen with some bees and some honey frames with no brood in a nuc. The next day I noticed that most of the bees and the queens were gone. OK. The same day I ran into my cell finisher looking for QC's and I was astonished to see that exact queen on one of the frames. Lucky me; the hive was so full of bees that I consider noticing her a miracle. Forgot to say that the finisher was queen less.