17/05/2026
All the new queens are emerging in the hives. When they are ready to emerge, it was 12-13 days in this case. They will chew through the bottom of the cell and emerge its like a little hinged door. The queen will now spend a few days in the hive maturing before going on her mating flight.
When the hive decides that a new queen is needed they will select a cell with a 1-3 day old egg/larvae in and then feed it with a high nutrient rich diet of Royal Jelly. This goes on for around 9 days as they continue to build the cell and close it off.
After this, the larvae starts to pupates and develop into a virgin queen and normally at around day 16 she will emerge. But in ourcase they have done this quicker.
The who process can take up to around 24 days.
After she's mated she will spend a couple of days developing before laying eggs.
Its good practice even in small scale beekeping to have a hive set up which is purely for raising new queens, as if you have queens on hand then you can split and introduce a new queen straight away. As if you leave a hive queenless for over 20 days thats 20 days without any new bees being produce so the hive would dwindled slightly and you would notice the difference in honey stores.
