Emergency Cells in nuc

[mherndon]

I had 8 to 10 emergency cells started in a nuc from a split.  I didn't think I had young enough larvae for them to make a queen.  I was planning on introducing a queen, but they ended up queen right with the emergency cells.  This was 14 days ago when I made the split.  I looked in today and one of the cells had a hole in the side of the cell.  Would this be from a new queen tearing them out?  What if the larvae was older than 4,5 or 6 days when they started with the royal jelly?  Would it still make a queen?  Any comments would be appreciated.


Mark

[iddee]

Recount your days. A queen emerges in 16 days. If the queen emerged yesterday, the cell was made from a larva the day it hatched.

[mherndon]

There had to be another queen cell somewhere.  The 8 or 10 on the one frame I checked were less than 14 days.  I'll have to wait and check for eggs to verify I do have a queen.  Should be getting mated in a day or so?

Mark

[iddee]

Day 1...egg laid

Day 3...Egg hatches

Day 4... larva is chosen for queen cell.

Day 16...Queen emerges

A queen cell only exists for 12 days, open and capped combined.

[RayMarler]

You made the split 14 days ago. At that time, they chose 12 to 24 hour larva to make queen cells. They were eggs that hatched the third day and were one day old, that's 4 days. 12 days later a queen emerged (plus or minus 1 day depending on weather). That was 2 days before your inspections finding the side ripped out of a queen cell.

The workers will rip out the sides and destroy pupa not old enough to emerge yet. They will rip out the sides and let the resident virgin queen sting to death any other queens that are old enough to be emerging.

I would say you have a virgin queen in the nuc. You'll probably see eggs in another 14 days.

[Robo]

I agree with iddee and Ray's assessment.  Remember the 16 days starts from when the egg was laid and not from when you made your split

I had 8 to 10 emergency cells started in a nuc from a split. 

I question the quality of any queen in this situation,  8 to 10 cells raised by a resource limited nuc.
http://robo.bushkillfarms.com/can-you-afford-emergency-queens/

What if the larvae was older than 4,5 or 6 days when they started with the royal jelly?  Would it still make a queen? 

Bee will attempt to raise a queen from drone eggs,  so why wouldn't they use questionable aged larvae if given no other choice?   They are in a life or death scenario when left queenless and will attempt to resolve it with any means possible.