new queens & brood

[rober]

how long on average does it take a newly installed bred queen to settle in & start laying?

[HomeSteadDreamer]

It varies.  First they have to have comb built to lay in. And generally a few resources before they'll start up.  Are you on foundation, foundationless or already built comb?

I know with my foundationless hive I didn't open for a week.  They had a small patch of eggs then but I wouldn't worry for 2 weeks then I'd worry.

[BeeMaster2]

how long on average does it take a newly installed bred queen to settle in & start laying?

As long as you have lots of bees to cover the brood, normally in a weeks time you should have lots of brood. Weather definately is a factor but not at this time of the year.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

She may not have been matted.

[10framer]

in an established hive?  a few days after she's released most likely but if it took a week i wouldn't be worried.  much longer than that and i might think there was a problem.

[rober]

these were mated queens from a reliable breeder introduced to established hives on drawn comb. they were replacement queens for 3 hives & a nuc. the queen in the nuc was a used 1 year old queen & was the 1st one out. she's laying some but not a lot. in one hive I found queen cells a few days after introducing the caged queen & as per iddee's advice I removed those cells & put a marshmallow in the candy hole to keep the queen caged an few more days. when I checked 2 days ago the cage was empty & there was no brood in the top box. fearing she'd been killed I moved down to inspect the bottom box & found 3 frames of brood! in the next hive I did find the queen but there was no brood yet. the 3rd hive the queen was still caged so I removed the plug to release her. it's been 2 weeks since the cages were placed in the hives.