I just removed 10 virgin queens queens from my observation hive.
2 weeks ago, 3/15/15, we removed the queen and 3 frames of bees and brood due to the fact they were prepping to swarm and had a large ball of bees hanging out side of the entrance.
A week ago this hive swarmed during the day and left. Today they swarmed again and moved into a swarm trap in my yard.
Today we could hear at least 3 queens piping so to keep them from swarming again we opened the observation hive and removed queen cells.
As soon as we separated the cells from the bees, the queens started coming out of the cells. We ended up with 11 queens not counting the original queen and the 2 swarm queens. I kept one in the observation hive and made a NUC and put this queen in the hive the NUC came from. (Last night I saw a large unmarked queen in the observation hive. No sign of the marked one. It most have gotten out of its cell when we weren't looking and hid.)
I now have 9 queens that are all marked with white marker and are ready to place in your splits. I only have a white marker.
This hive was wintered over and has never had any chemical or anti bacterial treatment of any kind.
I am selling the virgin queens for $7.5 with the queen cage or 5 dollars without the cage.
If you are in the Jacksonville area and are interested in any of these queens, PM me.
Jim