3 week old emerging queens & broodless split?

[Angry_Mob]

So three weeks ago today I did a pagden split. The 2017 queen went into a 14x12 hive on a national frame. Since then they have done very well and almost all frames are drawn out with lots of stores. The national frame was drawn down with drone comb below.

Today I opened the original hive as I was told not to disturb for three weeks. As I did the air filled with bees, was quite an amazing sight and in hindsight that may have been a swarm? I then looked through the combs and I couldn't find any sign of eggs. However on one of the frames close to the back of the hive there were about 6 queen cells along the bottom of the frame, I knocked a couple of them down as I thought they were empty and they were.

Further in to the inspection I noticed a piping noise and low and behold I seen a queen. She was underneath a lug licking a dead bee? She was extremely flighty and ran about and when any of the other bees came close they seemed to grab her rear leg and she made the pipping noise all the more. From this I assumed they hadn't accepted her so I caught her for the mean time in case I needed to mark her.

At about the second frame from the front I came another queen (emergency?) cell with a brown ring (in hindsight that should of been a giveaway) so as I began to tear it I seen a queen bee inside who promptly awoke, climbed out and crawled about the frame. I decided then to place her in the hive but before I closed it up I proceeded to tear down the rest of the queen cells on the first frame that I had came across and again one had a almost fully formed queen in it. Also on the basis that the bees didn't seem to accept the queen I had captured and there was no brood I decided to nip her.

I took the original national frame from the 14x12 2017 queen hive, removed the drone comb (which I wanted to do regardless) and all the bees from it and replaced a frame of stores on the original hive. It didn't have much brood. I also placed a second super on the original hive to give them more space.

I doubted myself but it is three weeks as I double checked.


How can a queen emerge 21 days after a split?

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I'm not totally stuck with this hive, I'm expecting 2 buckfast queens to arrive mid next week. My intention today was to make up some nucs but I held off as I wasn't sure whether young bees would stay in a new hive with no brood? My only thoughts are unless I close the door, keep in the shade and water like you would on an apidea then introduce the queen next week?

Not sure whether I should introduce one of the buckfast to the original hive or leave the virgin queen alone for a few weeks and make up 2 nucs? Thoughts?

 

[Eyeman]

You did the right thing in removing all the queen cells or releasing the queens. If there are no remaining QC's then the virgins will fight it out but wont swarm.
Eggs which are on the edge of the brood nest can occasionally be ignored so that there is a significant delay before the egg hatches into a larvae after which they usually get well fed.
That might explain the delay?

 

[Angry_Mob]

Possibly, should of said there was a few capped drone cells left to hatch as well so they must of been the last of what the old queen laid.

As for the split; I placed two national frames covered in bees with pollen and nectar into a maisimore 14x12 nuc. I fed them a light syrup, closed the entrance and placed in a shaded corner. My hope is that similar to an apidea they will bond into one unit and hopefully begin drawing the comb of the 14x12 frames in prep for the new queen.