Workers killed newly hatched virgin queen?!?!?! HELP!

[TerraJoy]

HI! Well I am fairly new at this... and I need your expert advice. Here is the situation.

I (and my bee mentor) inspected the hive yesterday.  I did not find any eggs, however I did find fairly developed larva and a large amount of beautiful capped brood. So we guessed the queen died five or so days ago.  On the bottom of one of the frames we found three queen cells.  Upon inspection one of the cells broke open and a fully developed queen raced out!!!!!!

She seemed pretty erratic and began racing around.  Then all of a sudden a few workers began attacking her! They were jumping on her and stinging her!!!

We put the frame back and closed up not wanting to bother them.

Do you think they killed her?
Why would they do this?
Are they wanting to swarm?
Are the other queen cells going to open?

WHAT IS GOING ON?!

Please help me understand.

Thanks!!

[G3farms]

More than likely there was another queen already hatched out and the masses have accepted her. A virgin queen is really runny, likes to run and hide from you. More than likely they did kill her. If there is another queen in the hive she will most likely find the other queen cells and kill them. They are not wanting to swarm, this would have taken place a few days ago if it was going to happen.

[TerraJoy]

Thanks!

How many days from now should I start seeing eggs? Unfortunately the weather is going to be horrible for the next week and may hinder a successful breeding of the new queen.  If she dies will I have to buy a new queen?

[Bennettoid]

The bees tend to know what they need more than the beekeeper does. G3farms is correct, there is probably another Queen already. She will find a way to breed and start laying ASAP. Faster than you could provide another Queen, anyway. If there isn't another queen then you have Queen cells already. The bees are doing what they need to do.

I remember the first time I heard a newly hatched Queen piping. I had heard about it, and read about it here, but to hear it and realize what it was let me know that all was well in that hive.

[FRAMEshift]

Thanks!

How many days from now should I start seeing eggs? Unfortunately the weather is going to be horrible for the next week and may hinder a successful breeding of the new queen.  If she dies will I have to buy a new queen?

Relax and leave the bees alone for about 2 weeks, then check for eggs.  If you don't have eggs a month from now, then you will need to get a frame with some eggs and add it to your hive. 

To answer your question exactly, since you had virgin queens hatching yesterday, then yesterday was day 16 from the egg.  The earliest you should expect eggs from the new queen would be about a month from the time the virgin queen was laid as an egg.  So you have 14 days to go.  But sometimes it takes longer for a new queen to get her act together, so don't be too impatient.  If you fail to get a laying queen in a month, ask your mentor for a frame of eggs, so your colony can start over in raising a queen.  My bet is that you have a virgin queen already (before your inspection yesterday) so you will get eggs within the next 2 weeks.

[G3farms]

http://www.thebeeyard.org/queencalendar.pl?month=5&day=14&year=2011

here is a queen calender, you can change the date at the top to suit your needs

I changed it for you as if the queen hatched today