How long to lay after AS?

[nematode]

How long will it usually take for a year old queen to lay after having been AS'd? She stopped laying a week before I spotted Queen cells. Then I popped in today (4 days after doing the AS) and she is there but there are no eggs yet. I don't know what is normal.

I think I might have been misguided by a queen I had two years ago who layed right up to an AS, layed a full frame 24 hours later, and then swarmed anyway a week after that.

 

[Polyanwood]

It depends on lots of things : is it foundation or comb, how many bees there are, how much stores in the hive and whether there is a good flow on. Sometimes I have waited over a week.

 

[REDWOOD]

Are you sure they were swarm cells not supercedure, queen should be on the frame she was on with drawn foundation.

 

[nematode]

Thanks for the replies,

She was laying very well until a week and a half ago. Then she stopped laying. Also, last week bees from my hive started taking a lot of interest in an empty nuc I left out as a bait hive. Then I spotted charged queen cells on Sunday and carried out an AS. The queen cells were on the bottom of the frames and a few down the edges. Only one was in the middle ish of a frame. As part of the AS I put the queen in a new hive (on original site) with a frame of sealed brood (there was no open brood, just a hive full of sealed brood), a drawn frame I had spare, and the rest was foundation. Since then there has been no interest in the bait hive anymore. So, I hope it was all swarm preparation? I didn't mean to go in and look today as I don't believe in looking without a reason. Unfortunately I had to fix the fact that I put the open mesh floor on upside down on Sunday (oops) and I didn't want them to build comb in the gap.

 

[Finman]

.
When I have done false swarms, queens start to lay after couple of days.
The queen may become slimmer in new hive and then it starts to enlarge.

.

 

[Outlander]

The problem here is that you have not sat down by the hive and read Ted Hooper to them.

 

[drstitson]

few days in my experience (range: almost immediate to 1 week).

 

[nematode]

Thanks everyone. I just finished an inspection (7 days after AS) and she has layed a few full frames with eggs. These are mostly upright eggs so I think she just got her ovaries back up to full working order only recently. I should have had more faith in her as the purpose of my inspection was to see what the situation was in case I had to start to get and get a new queen.