Introducing queen to queenless hive with a frame having queen cells drawn.

[Andy]

My hive referred to in the 'Queen cells torn down' thread has now fulfilled its role. I have now raised 6 queens and want to convert it to a queen right colony. I had placed a frame in on Sunday to work out if there was a virgin running around, which there was. She has been dispatched and I had another queen from a previous round finally start laying.

I want to introduce her to this queen less hive but am having a bit of trouble reconciling a few bits of advice I've read. I've had her next to the frame with the brood in a butler cage type thing but the bees are still drawing out emergency cells after I knocked them back.

1. Make sure there are no queen cells. ie I'm getting to a point that if they draw out the cells then they are likely to get capped before 7 days as the remaining larvae are getting older.

2. Don't open a hive with a newly introduced queen before 7 days because of the risk of the bees balling the queen.

The bees seem happy inspecting her through the box. Can I pull the tab and let them release her and then inspect for queen cells on the only viable frame in say 3 days time? I wouldn't touch any other frames. Do I just have to accept the risk?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

N|o - you open up and remove the QCs before introducing the queen - otherwise they will either just kill her or swarm with her