virgin queen

[ivashka]

I grafted some queens and they hatched on July 25th and she was suppose to mate by July 31st. I checked my hive that has my grafted virgin queen on August 1st and didn't see no eggs or anything.  Does it mean she never went mating? I haven't checked my hive since august 1st to see what's happening in there. But once I check and there are no eggs, what should I do?  lately we've been having rain and thunderstorms in the evening and not sure if it has anything to do with it.

[BjornBee]

Check in another week. Your schedule is very tight in the timeframe of expectations. It does not always happen that soon.

Queens usually mate between late morning and about 3 pm.  So late day thunderstorms should not interfer with the process.

[kathyp]

my last one took one month from egg to laying.  i almost combined the hive with another thinking i'd lost her.

[bugleman]

I have found that 2 weeks is not long enough to verify queens.

[Michael Bush]

Two weeks is typical.  But some take longer.  If you don't have eggs after 24 days from emergence, then I'd write them off.