Found Dead Queen

[ChippewaBee]

Yesterday I went out and found my queen dead outside the hive.  Today I did a inspection on the hive and found two supercedure cells opened.  There are very small larve in the cells but I didn't find any freshly laid eggs.  How long should I give the hive before I try to requeen myself?  I didn't see any of the new queens in the hive today but my hive is probraly twice the size it was a couple of weeks ago.  Any help would be appreciated.

[Brian D. Bray]

Sounds as if the workers killed the queen just as the new ones were hatching--fairly common in a supercedure situation.  I would think that you should see evidence of the new queens activity in  about 2 weeks.  3-5 days before mating and then a week to 10 days from the begining of mating to laying eggs.  You should find that most of the freshest larvae will be near hatching by the time the new queen goes into production.

[ChippewaBee]

Alright I will report back in about 2 weeks with what I have found.  Hopefully the bees millons of years of experiance will prevail. :-D

[Michael Bush]

From when the old queen died until you get a new queen (small larvae would indicate it just happened) it will be 24 days on the average until you have a laying queen.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm