Swarm Prep but haven’t Swarmed?

[Swift Nick]

I inspected one of my hives this morning, it had about 8 or so queen cells, two capped. My marked queen, who I put in the hive 2 weeks ago after getting mated in an Apidea, was still in the hive and there were frames with eggs.
I put the queen in a nuc with three frames and a few frames shook in.
I went through the hive reducing queen cells, one of the queen cells had a virgin of a good size, so I released her, and took out all the other queen cells.
I have a couple of questions;
Was it correct to release the virgin into the hive or should I have removed her and kept a queen cell?
How long before I go back in to remove queen cells? Usually it would be 7 days, but could they seal a Queen cell in a 3 or 4 days from an older larvae and swarm with the virgin queen?
Thank you.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

could they seal a Queen cell in a 3 or 4 days from an older larvae and swarm with the virgin queen?

yes

 

[Swift Nick]

yes

Thanks, not the best thing to have done then, back in on Tuesday then, looking for looking for queen cells.

 

[Boston Bees]

I inspected one of my hives this morning, it had about 8 or so queen cells, two capped. My marked queen, who I put in the hive 2 weeks ago after getting mated in an Apidea, was still in the hive and there were frames with eggs.
I put the queen in a nuc with three frames and a few frames shook in.
I went through the hive reducing queen cells, one of the queen cells had a virgin of a good size, so I released her, and took out all the other queen cells.
I have a couple of questions;
Was it correct to release the virgin into the hive or should I have removed her and kept a queen cell?
How long before I go back in to remove queen cells? Usually it would be 7 days, but could they seal a Queen cell in a 3 or 4 days from an older larvae and swarm with the virgin queen?
Thank you.

I think you have basically done the right thing. Having nuc'd the queen, it's ideal finding a virgin ready to come out, as you don't have to go through the lottery of picking a cell.

Why would removing the virgin and leaving an unhatched cell make any sense? A bird in the hand ...

If you had a mature virgin (i.e about to emerge) in that one cell, I would have opened the other capped cell and released the one in there, too, and let them sort it out between themselves. Of course, the virgin in the other cell might not have been mature enough yet.

The hive might make new queen cells, sure, so check, as you say. But it may well not bother.

 

[Swift Nick]

I think you have basically done the right thing. Having nuc'd the queen, it's ideal finding a virgin ready to come out, as you don't have to go through the lottery of picking a cell.

Why would removing the virgin and leaving an unhatched cell make any sense? A bird in the hand ...

If you had a mature virgin (i.e about to emerge) in that one cell, I would have opened the other capped cell and released the one in there, too, and let them sort it out between themselves. Of course, the virgin in the other cell might not have been mature enough yet.

The hive might make new queen cells, sure, so check, as you say. But it may well not bother.

Thanks, the other cell was only just capped. I made myself a little extra work, with a couple of extra inspections. But I thought I had done the right thing, preserved a virgin queen, saved a week of queenlessnes for the colony and reduced the risk of a queen cell no emerging. It’s not always easy to think it through on the spot.