Laying Workers

I had prepared a couple of nucs for re-queening. Expecting the queens by post on 29th July, I broke down all queen-cells in the 2 nucs on the morning of the 28th. The new queens have not arrived, and may not for another week. Does anybody know how long it will be before these two queenless colonies, under stress and with no eggs (though some sealed brood) will start laying workers, and how long that process takes? I need to decide whether to give them a frame of eggs, or leave them for a week on the assumption that they'll welcome a new laying queen with open arms (it's never straightforward, requeening, is it?).

 

[Frisbee]

You should post this as a question in the main beekeeping forum. This is the blog section, which is more like everyday stories of beekeeping folk. You'll get lots of answers in the forum and quite possibly non here.
Frisbee