Went back into the hive today (day6), was not looking forward to it and again had good reason. These are nasty bees! Discovered 4 more now capped queen cells that I must have missed at day 3. Queen cage was still in place with new queen and the emerged brood inside. Bees were being nice and she released fine. Watched her for a minute (pretty much everyone let her be) then gently buttoned everything up.
My hope (for them!) is that everything settles down before winter really kicks in (November around here). I’ll watch (from a bit of a distance) and see if they calm down slightly and get back to work. Plenty of stores so won’t do anything with them today as far as syrup (I threw some patties in). As a side note since I was doing one queen, I bought a second to do both hives (I have only 2). The other hive right next door was a real pleasure to re-queen and although I put the new queen in right after taking the old one out (didn’t kill the old queen from the nice hive, she’s in a nuc as my insurance policy), I did have to tear down capped emergency queen cells in the second hive when I checked today. So for sure in my case, whether putting the cage in 24 hours or 15 minutes after pulling the old queen, checking the whole hive for queen cells is a must before release if the release is delayed for more than a few days. Or so I would have you believe…