Possible no queen question

[DaveKow]

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

[JP]

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