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Ok, so we tried our hand at queen rearing and we are going to have capped queen cells in a couple of days to put in hives. In the mean time we bought a couple of hives from someone. The hives we bought had no queen last week but they had 2 capped queen cells in all 3. - The hives had swarmed before we bought them. So on Wednesday when I will have new queen cells, I will not know if these new hives need a queen or not. Ok so long story - sorry. Question - if we put queen cells in these colonies and they have queens will the workers break them down? Which will be fine I just don't want to disturb a new queen too much.

Yes, they will tear them down and possibly kill the new queen because of the disturbance. It is best to just wait for 2 weeks after the estimated time of the new queen emerging and look for eggs. You can make up a couple nucs or a queen castle with the cells and let them emerge. Then introduce if needed, make new hives if wanted, or recombine if desired.

Thanks Wally.

If anyone needs any queen cells I'm going to have some extra ones on Wednesday. Just let me know.

I'm just going to have to say how much I appreciate, and how lucky we are as members of GCBA, to have Master Beekeeper Wally Swaim as a member of our club. Thank you, Wally!