Transferring Brood

[banjojohn]

I had a small start with a new marked queen in it.  Got it 2 weeks ago from a friend. It seemed well started and they had filled a shallow super( all we had at the time) I put another shallow with starter wired wax in it as soon as I got it home. Looked in yesterday and they had not come up and had filled a lot of honey down there. Pulled one up and it had queen cells. I thought they were going to swarm so I cut them out. I looked closer today and no eggs, larva. Some capped cells. Couldn't find the queen. I transferred a frame of eggs, larva, out of a thriving hive. Will they make a queen with that or should I just requeen? They lost that queen and were making another right? I should have just left them alone I guess or looked closer.

[amymcg]

It would seem that they lost their queen and were trying to raise a new one.  Always make sure you have a queen before cutting out queen cells, of course, you know that now.

They should raise a queen from the frame that you put in.  It will take awhile. You might be better off ordering a queen.

[Michael Bush]

Assuming they are now queenless, they will build a new one.  It will take 25 days to get from a 3 day old larvae to a laying queen.  So if you're not attached to the genetics of the hive, you might want to buy one.

My rule is I hardly ever cut out a queen cell at all, and never until I'm SURE I know why it's there and that they won't end up queenless.  I do occasionally have a reason to because I'm rearing queens.

If I find a bunch of swarm cells I usually just split the hive.  I've cut the swarm cells out and had them swarm anyway leaving the hive queenless.

If the bees want to raise a queen, I've seldom seen that I wasn't better off letting them.