What's wrong with my queen.

[hoxbar]

I had posted about a week ago that my hive went queenless. The hive was void of capped brood, eggs and larva. I had noticed over the last couple of the months this hive has been slowly getting weaker. Last week I decided to give the hive a frame of eggs thinking they would raise their own queen. Today I opened the hive and found eggs layed in 7 of my 9 frames. What happened? I caught this as a prime swarm in the spring. My mentor thinks maybe the queen wasn't mated a few weeks ago and just mated and started laying eggs. He also said that he has seen queen stop laying during extreme hot temperatures like we are having. Any suggestion on what's going on?

[AliciaH]

I think your mentor's correct.  In my limited experience, if one is lucky enough to catch the first swarm out of a hive and get the old queen with the group, you're up and running pretty quickly.  But if the swarm was a 2nd or 3rd (or so), then the possibility of getting a new queen is higher.  Three to four weeks to get her out, mated, ripened, and laying.

If you don't know where the swarm came from or how many times that particular hive may have already swarmed, it can be a bit tense making yourself wait the alloted time to know for sure.

Not saying that the weather isn't a factor, it very well could be, but timing as you lay it out seems about right.  Sounds like she's a good layer...congrats!