Richiedug, sorry to learn that you have lost a swarm. I trust you are OK after you hospital visit.
I don't understand some of the posts above. !!!
A strategy of hope is not ideal, and you are correct, 2 queencells could lead to a cast.
After you have lost a swarm:-
Leave one open queencell which has plenty of royal jelly in it, remove the sealed ones (you cannot be sure that the sealed cell has something in it). Mark the frame with a drawing pin above the queencell so you know where it is. Treat it VERY carefully do no knock, touch or shake it. In a week (5 - 7 days) check through the hive and remove all the other queencells - you may need to shake the combs to remove the bees that are covering emergency queencells. Do NOT shake the frame the queencell is on as you will dislodge the queen from her food source. You now have 1 well-fed queencell. The queen will emerge 8 days after the queencell has been sealed - 5 days from egg to sealed larva.
Leave the colony for 3 weeks as it is not adviseable to mess around with a colony with a virgin in it. Never open a hive with a virgin inside between 10 and 5 pm as she might be flying and you could confuse her. You will likely see bees hanging around the entrance a few days after emergence when the queen is ready for mating and the weather is good. They will be guiding her back using their nasnov glands - concerned about her absence. You may see droned hanging around the hive too - just as lads will hang around a tart in a nightclub hoping for a good time. If you're lucky or patient you may see her return with a 'mating sign' attached after a flight with the boys. She will start to lay a couple of days after the last mating flight.
+++++
As an option and insurance policy, if you have a nuc to hand, you could put one queencell on it's frame in there with 2 frames of shaken bees, 1 frame of stores and make up the space with comb/foundation and have a nuc which has a good chance of producing a queen itself and developing into a full sized colony by the winter.
++++++
To further complicate things. If you leave 2 open queencells, you can remove one of them in 5 - 7 days leaving just the one. (in case you knock one by mistake). This MIGHT allow you time to get a nuc or a mini-nuc as melormynydd suggests and remove the queencell to that with a cup-full of bees.
Adam
