I installed 2 packages on April 28. One package has a queen and eggs. The second one is queenless. I can tell by the behavior.
I also have strong hive in 2 deeps and 2 mediums that had started building swarm cells. The several that I saw were not yet capped but had young larvae in them on May 3rd. On May 3rd, I removed the 3 year old queen and five frames of bees, comb, honey, pollen and emerging brood and put them in a new location.
I plan on taking a frame with swarm cells from the old hive and placing it into my queenless package hive. I would still be leaving swarm cells behind for the old hive.
I figure that some of them may be capped by this weekend or a few days sooner. How long should I wait after they are capped before transfering them to the package?
Thanks