Does anyone have a guess as to how long a queen will be out of the hive when going on mating a flight(s)?
I've made two splits this year, both of which I allowed my bees to raise their own queen. I'm sure this was a success because I saw queen cells after the first couple days and then I saw that she had emerged a while later.
The earlier hive I did a newspaper combine with the second hive that didn't yet have an emerged queen (there were queen cells present). Eventually I saw that the queen emerged from this one as well. Now, I go in, no queen, no eggs no nothing. Both of them were like this, that's why I combined the first one with the second one. The queen has only been emerged from this second split for a few days, so maybe it's not too late to buy a queen for this hive before a laying worker gets started.
The bees are bringing in honey very well, but not drawing comb.
I dunno if the queen is getting lost, birds are getting her, what, but I would really like an opinion on this one.
Given queens have never been witnessed feeding outside of a hive, most estimates that I've read are a half hour or less. You might still find eggs. By the 28th day since egg, I think, the queens really pick up egg production. Then again, I'm just regurgitating stuff I've read or, heared from beekeepers/queen breeders in my area.
A virgin queen can take up to 2-3 weeks before she starts to lay. A newly emerged queen waits several days (up to 5-6) before she goes on her first mating flight. Then she will go on numerous mating flights over a 3-4 day period, mating more than a dozen times. Not every flight is a successful mating flight. This gives bee eating birds a lot of opportunites to snack on your new queen.
If you have other hives that are queenless go ahead and order some if the recently emerged queen starts laying in the mean time. If so you can always take the extra queen and put her in a nuc for an emergency.