Requeening with ripe queen cells

[little55]

I have a hypothetical question. I am thinking about raising my own queens next year. And I don't really want to set up mating nucs and all that stuff maybe in the future. I put a ripe queen cell in a honey super above the brood nest and the virgin hatches out she will likely kill the old queen. Then she will leave the hive to mate. During her mating flight she is killed or gets lost ect... Will there be larvae in the hive of the right age for the hive to rear a replacement? And for those of you who have tried this what is your success rate of this method?

[suttonbeeman]

Will work very well. BUT you MUST use a cell protector....either a push in or hang between frames. I have used this method for the past five yrs with a success rate of about 80%. THis past year it was a disaster. I put in 320 cells in a downpour....didnt hurt cells but I was a drounded rat! THen it rained for the next two plus weeks and I ended up with about 75% queenless or drone layers as the queens couldnt mate....(everyone in SE US had this problem for the most part) I talked to a beek in Wi who did the same thing and had the same result. We both have had great success and you will too unless monsoon sets in!

[peacekeeperapiaries]

I second Suttonbeeman's response this is how I also re-queened everthing this year and how I queened new splits. Picked up cells one day, placed in hives same day as pickup, emerged within 24 hrs or so. I did not have the rain issue and figure about 85% success. We did end up with a few queenless and/or drone layers due I am sure to a failure to mate or the virgin got picked off by a predator. I also reccomend the use of the cell protector. Not sure on the larvae age in the hive but in my own experience it takes a week or two to for the virgins to get mated and start laying (larvae to old to make a queen). In the FEW cases the virgin did not work out I had to add a frame of eggs to the hive which they then drew their own cells from. We prefer the hanging cell protector placed between the top bars, easy to place, easy to remove once emerged.