Swarmed hive - queen emerged by removal

[Forester Doug]

My old queen has swarmed, and my hive is currently has no laying queen, and no eggs, some capped brood and drones yet to emerge. I had 7 sealed queen cells which I have thinned to two.

I kept the queen cells to try and establish what stage the queens were at. Whilst inspecting one I realised one had what appears to be a fully formed and moving queen, perhaps a little small (because she hasn't mated??), but a queen none the less. She hadn't 'emerged' herself but was flexing wings and once the cell was broken open she backed out of it on her own accord.

My question is has this ever happened to anyone else before? Did I do the right thing by putting her back in the hive? Should I have removed the remaining 2 queen cells? Is she likely to be able to take over the hive?

Any advice welcome.

 

[gmonag]

If she backed out it wasn't a queen - the queens emerge head first. The queen has already emerged and a worker has gone into the cell to clean it and been sealed in by another.

 

[Erichalfbee]

 

[Forester Doug]

It was definitely a queen, she only emerged in reverse because that was how I had removed her cell from the frame, creating a cavity at her rear. Like I said she didn't emerge herself as such, more I set her free.

 

[Cattleya]

We inspected a hive which had been half of a split and which had issued a cast swarm even though they were emergency cells. In removing the queen cells we ended up with a box of queens - one we put back in the hive, one we made a nuc up with and one stung the other queens in the box to death and ended up in the freezer because we had nowhere else to put her. Ideally I would have removed the other 2 queen cells and put one nice looking queen back in the hive, but hopefully she will do the job for you and all will be well.

 

[enrico]

It is a common thing to have more than one queen ready at once. The chosen one is allowed out and the others get sorted. You may have upset the equilibrium but who knows! Good luck
E