If not sure of queenrightness, can you drop in a frame of potential royalty?

[joker1656]

I have a hive that might have a queen, but I cannot find her.  This hive is from a removal/cutout.  I did not think I got the queen, but gave them some time.  There is brood present, but most of it looks older.  Not much new, if any. 

Since I am not sure, can I still drop in a frame of eggs from another strong hive?  I would like to do this before one of the workers starts to lay, or something.  If I am on the right track, the frame needs to have the tiny egg, standing on end, to be potential. 

I just want to get ahead of the game a little.   

[Jacobs]

You are on the right track.  Put a frame of eggs in the hive. If they don't have a queen they can use it to make one.  You can check the frame after about 4 days to see if they are making queen cells.  I did this about 10 days ago with a hive I split.  Try as I would, I could never find the queen, but there were multiple queen cells that I left in the hive of origin (capped brood, larvae, but no eggs visible).  I wanted to find the queen and put her in the new split.  Having failed at this, I put a frame of eggs from a good hive in the new split.  There are now 2 queen cells that had larvae in them when I checked 4 days after putting the frame in the hive.  The original hive has not swarmed yet, but I still expect them to.  More information than you wanted or needed, but I wanted to let you know that I did exactly what you suggested, but for a different reason.