had 4 new queens arrive last saturday. they were fairly small. installed them in 4 splits last sunday ( 4-8 ) morning. each hive had 5 frames of brood, 2 full frames of honey, & 2 frames of drawn out comb. i just got in from checking them. one still had some candy plug left & was still in the cage, one was out & about in the hive, & two were dead on their cages ( candy plug was gone ). i guess i'm getting some more queens. there were no queens in the hives with the dead queens.
You don't have laying workers in the hives with the dead queens?
none that i know of. the brood frames were taken from hives that had queens. of course i have no way of knowing whether the queens died in their cages before or after the bees ate their way in. the bees seemed to be reacting positively when i installed the cages. all interaction was face to face, no stingers aimed at the cage. today is the 7th day. i wonder whether i should release the 4th queen. she seemed healthy yesterday so the hive must be attending to her.
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Now you should have in every nuc queen cells.
When they are capped, nucs accept easily new queens.
before that it is sometimes difficult.
there are queen cells but they are empty. i'll check them again tomorrow. it's about to storm here. not a good time to go into the hives. there is still enough brood that they might possibly rear some queens. what about the 4th queen. should i release her? 7 days seems like a long time for the hive to eat thru the candy plug.
It is also a good idea to feed hives before and during a queen change.
mvh edward :-P