I am a newbie with no bees yet (April 15 they arrive). Today, I had the opportunity to watch a beekeeper inspect his hives. We came to one that had a small (about 4 inches in dia.) amount of capped brood. No eggs and no open brood. He stated that he thinks it is queenless. My question is can he take a frame of eggs and open brood and place it in the possibly queenless hive to have them raise a new queen? Or not, in case they already still have a queen. I suggested this to him and he totally disagreed with me. So I dropped the subject and thought that I would ask here.
Is it too early in the year (NE Ohio) to mate the new queen?
Thanks in advance.
Dave
If there are no drones available to mate with a virgin, she will become a drone layer, but if you have drones and introduce brood/egg frames from another hive they can quite possibly supercede or make an emergency queen.
...JP