[Hambone]

Started a walk a way 6 weeks ago Wednesday. Checked them oh every 10 days or so. My last check to see if the queen was out was 5/4. 16 days ago. All the queen cells were open. So thought I would have a laying queen the next week. Checked 5/11 no eggs, no larva...nothing. Thought this can't bee good. The winds have been up and have had a rainy day once a week. So I figured the day she wanted to go out and mate the weather just didn't agree. Checked yesterday. Nice fat queen! Laying a great solid pattern. Took a total of 42 days maybe 40 for her to start laying.

The moral of this story...Patience. Have a little patience. The bees told me what I needed to know every week. They were always calm, always working hard. I figured they were queen right. Now I have the proof. :thumbsup:

 

[BradW]

Had a similar situation myself. Lost a queen in one hive, but was able to stick some brood frames in there and they made about 6 queen cells. Later on, I checked and they were gone, so I assumed that I had a new queen. Week or so went by and I saw no brood, so I stuck a queen in there I had, and they ended up killing her (me being impatient and a new beek). I kept checking the hive, and eventually saw brood but no queen. Took me about 3 times in there before I ended up seeing her, fat little bugger that she is. The bees raised a nice queen, in spite of me being a new beek and trying to "speed up" the process - they knew what to do.

 

[MWillard]

It's quite typcial what you experienced with the number of days of how long it took you to see eggs.

Queen Cells emerge on day 16 (16 days)
Mating flights occur about 6-7 days later (23 days)
Check for egss about 12 days later (35 days)

When you add up the days, it's amazing how long it takes to produce a laying queen.