Drone brood and queen cells

[DRam]

We had a hive swarm in April and left a couple of the capped queen cells that were left in the hive to hatch to hopefully re-queen the hive. The weather has been awful so on the 10th May we out a test frame in the have and when we looked 7 days later (17th May) no queen cells had been raised on the test frame so we guessed that we had a virgin queen and that the weather had delayed her mating. We decided to wait until today to have another inspection the thinking being that from the test frame on 10th May, all worker brood would have hatched, so any new capped worker brood, larva or eggs would indicate a laying queen.

On the inspection today we could only see drone brood, but we did see 4 queen cells some of them appearing to have royal jelly in them. We did not see a queen bee, but we are not always good at spotting them when they are unmarked.

My question is, will a queen-less colony attempt to raise a queen cell from a drone egg from a laying worker? If not how have these queen cells been built?

If there is a laying worker(s), can we save this colony by combining with a small NUC that has a laying queen using the newspaper method? Or is there a better suggestion.

Thanks

 

[Earthboy]

We had a hive swarm in April and left a couple of the capped queen cells that were left in the hive to hatch to hopefully re-queen the hive. The weather has been awful so on the 10th May we out a test frame in the have and when we looked 7 days later (17th May) no queen cells had been raised on the test frame so we guessed that we had a virgin queen and that the weather had delayed her mating. We decided to wait until today to have another inspection the thinking being that from the test frame on 10th May, all worker brood would have hatched, so any new capped worker brood, larva or eggs would indicate a laying queen.

On the inspection today we could only see drone brood, but we did see 4 queen cells some of them appearing to have royal jelly in them. We did not see a queen bee, but we are not always good at spotting them when they are unmarked.

My question is, will a queen-less colony attempt to raise a queen cell from a drone egg from a laying worker? If not how have these queen cells been built?

If there is a laying worker(s), can we save this colony by combining with a small NUC that has a laying queen using the newspaper method? Or is there a better suggestion.

Thanks

My question is, will a queen-less colony attempt to raise a queen cell from a drone egg from a laying worker? If not how have these queen cells been built?

No.

If there is a laying worker(s), can we save this colony by combining with a small NUC that has a laying queen using the newspaper method? Or is there a better suggestion.

Yes.

Randy (O) would claim how workers steal eggs, etc, but that will be another thread for the question #1. For question #2, check if you indeed have many eggs in one cell by LW. If so, dump the bees in the grass near the nuc and remove the laying worker's box from the old site.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Have to disagree with the queen cells bit. Desperate bees will try to raise “King” cells
If you have laying workers you can unite to a very strong colony.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

My question is, will a queen-less colony attempt to raise a queen cell from a drone egg from a laying worker? If not how have these queen cells been built?

No.

Of course they will - seen it happen on more than one occasion

I agree with Dani, you can unite a colony with laying workers with a strong queenright colony, but uniting them with a nuc is definitely not a wise move, you would be much better off just shaking them out in a quiet place and leave them beg their way into the other colonies.
Depending on seeing multiple eggs in each cell is just clutching at straws.