Cast swarm with queen prevented from going on mating flight?

[nelletap]

We are a community group and our first swarm was probably a caste swarm; they were installed and a QE was put in place which I believe was there for about 10 days before it was realised it should be removed.
After it was removed we noticed that there was a cluster of bees beneath the hive which we put back in the hive. We have had no eggs laid in this hive over the approx 8 weeks since it was first placed in the hive.
We assumed it was Q- though they were not overly aggressive and put in a frame of eggs (about 2-3 weeks after initial installation) which produced queen cells however no sign of a queen etc resulted so last week (7 weeks after first installation of swarm) another frame of eggs was placed in. To-day there were 6 queen cells.

q1. If we had a virgin queen and had prevented her mating for about 10 days is there a time beyond which she is unable to mate?
Q2 could this virgin queen still kill any newer queens before they could mate?

My own feeling is that the colony does not seem that distressed as I would expect from a queenless colony. One of our number is very good at finding queens and has looked very carefully on several inspections - it seems odd we could miss a queen if one was present.
I know there have been slightly similar situations discussed but I am hoping someone knowledgeable will make observations to help us. Thanks in advance.

 

[Midland Beek]

A queen has a window of opportunity to mate that is about 4 weeks long. If she does not mate in this window she will start to lay eggs, and this is how you get a drone laying queen.

If you have got queen cells on your test frame, then the colony very probably did/does not contain a queen of any description.

It is a wonder that there are any bees left. Destroying the queen cells on the test frame, thus making the colony hopelessly queenless, would give you the opportunity to introduce a new, bought queen. Do not expect anything to come of those queen cells.