If you successfully combine the NUC with its queen, the most
probable result would be for her to kill the queens in cells. If one or
more hatch, they might fight to the death of one.  If you leave the
queenless hive alone, they should hatch a queen and send her out on a
mating flight. This will take longer than blending the NUC  with the hive
[I am assuming the queen in the NUC is producing brood patterns you like.
If you do, destroy the queen cells  and let her take over].
        If you have some clue as to what the sealed queens will be like AND
the composition of the field of drones with whom she will mate, AND are
lucky enough that she will mate with many fertile drones of good quality,
AND she makes it home without being eaten by a bird or bug, allowing the
hive to raise their own would be preferable. It is cheaper than buying
queens BUT if you get a bad one, you get what you pay for.
        For me it is an easy decision: I buy the queens I want from someone
I trust, start them in a NUC and, if their pattern looks good, I get rid of
the hive queen I don't want and blend the NUC with the now queenless hive.
If the queen in the NUC is not performing as I wish her to do [I have one
now  who seems to refuse to lay in more than two frames even though her
pattern is good and she is now in a 9 frame hive and will put her in an
observation hive] I will try again with another purchased queen.
[Supercedure won't work for me, since I keep Carniolans and  two neighbors
less than a mile away keep Italians].

John F. Mesinger
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