Making queen cells

[Kwalt]

I have a queenless colony. I added a frame of eggs and bees from another colony. I thought the first queen to emerge will kill the others. I've been reading, or possibly misreading, information that suggests I should remove all but one queen cell to prevent the first queen from leaving with a swarm. Is this relative to the conditions in the box? What's the correct answer?

Kevin

[Dustymunky]

If its a large hive they could cast swarms with virgins. If the hive is weak then i doubt they will swarm and hopefully u get 1 good queen. If the hive is strong u could split the hive, make sure each split has a queen cell and then see how it shakes out. This would be insurance against swarming and also insurance in case virgin doesnt make it back from mating flight. Then you could recombine later if u only wanted 1 hive.


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[SiWolKe]

When i splitted I mostly had more than ten cells and I left the decision to the bees, never culled a cell.

I had only one swarm out of a queenless split which was because they had not enough space and density of bees was high.

Today, having more experience, I would distribute the frames which have cells and create more splits, if bee density is good for this, I have enough comb and honey comb to provide.

[Kwalt]

I wouldn't call this a strong hive at this point so I'll leave it to the bees to figure out. If it doesn't work out I'll combine it with another. Thank you all for the help.

[GregV]

Well, IF you do want to keep this hive as a stand-alone unit, I would do a temp split (as Dusty suggested) to ensure you have at least one laying queen in the end. Then combine back the temp split. Maybe even prop this project with more outside resources to ensure good queens.

If, on the other hand you do not need this hive, then why even waste time and resources?
Just combine it now.

I say figure out what is it you want. That right there should give you your answers.