This may be a easy question for the senior beeks, I have a queen less hive with no eggsor larva and only capped brood (not much of that even) So I gave the colony a frame full of of fresh eggs, but no larva, will the hive accept and make queen cells from the eggs? There is some honey and pollen frames in the hive.:roll: I did this with another hive but they seemed to neglect the eggs and let them die.( It was shy of pollen and honey)
The eggs have to be < 2 days old... even then, with all other factors optimal, my Q production rate is only around 60-70% for reasons not entirely clear to me. If I don't see a Q cell after a week, I pop some more eggs in. I don't think I have ever gone through 3 sets of eggs without making a Q. I do believe uncapped larva keeps the nurse bees happy as well as the promise of keeping population numbers while the hive waits on a queen.
There is also the matter of drones - how many hives do you have? Are there enough drones in the neighborhood to mate a queen? And yes be sure they have groceries to feed the brood
