I asked this question in the General Beekeeping section and then realized there was a "Requeening" section. Sorry, you're not suffering from deja vu!
My bees swarmed approximately 2 weeks ago and I was hoping the remaining colony would make a new queen. My husband and I did an inspection on Monday and again this afternoon, hoping to find a queen or eggs and we still haven't seen any. The one hopeful thing is that we did find maybe 10 or so open queen cells and maybe a couple unopened ones, but that was it. There's still a nice population of bees there and tons of honey and pollen and some capped brood, but no sign of a laying queen at the moment. What do you suggest I do? Continue being patient in hopes that some of those open queen cells produced a soon to be viable queen, or order a queen right away? Is it too late to requeen in Vermont? The one place I planned on getting a queen from if I ever needed to requeen is out for the year, so if I do need to order one, I'd love to hear any suggestions on where to get one. Thanks everyone!
Give them another week... Going from a virgin queen to a mated and fully laying queen sometimes takes several weeks. She may be in there, it's too early to tell... and when she does start laying her pattern may be a little weird at first (she has to get the hang of it).
Have a backup plan (i.e. call around for availability of mated queens) just in case.
Thank you Cheryl! By back-up plan, I assume you mean ordering a queen? I'm not sure I have any other option considering the fact that I only have one hive. I know people with multiple hives sometimes combine two but I don't have that option unfortunately! But hopefully they'll succeed in raising a new queen. Fingers are crossed!
By backup plan, I mean checking around for availability and maybe placing a "hold" on one, that you can cancel later if you find your queen.
My guess is she's in there and you'll know soon enough. :D
Anytime there is a question, I give them a frame of eggs and open brood and I've covered both the question and the answer.