"Now, on the day when the queens are supposed to hatch, i take the cells out. By shining a flashlight through the cell, i can clearly see there is not a good queen in there. The cell will contain one of three things: -A small undeveloped bee, maybe a worker bee, still white with purple eyes -A small fully developed, but dead, bee -A black mess on the bottom of the cell (rare)" Is the brood box you have transferred the bees to queenless? It should be! (One can produce queen cells in a queen right colony, but beginners should not try.) I suspect it is queenless, although Mats did not say. I suspect that there are not enough bees in the colony and the larvae are not being fed properly. A very successful queen breeder I know wants 5 kg. of bees in his cell building colonies! That is a lot of bees. Moreover, these bees should be obtained by shaking from the brood nest on a warm, sunny day when most of the field bees are out foraging. (It is likely that the beekeeper will have to shake from several hives, to get 5 kg. of bees.) In this manner, most of the bees for the brood hive will be nurse bees so (1) they are 'primed' to feed larvae and (2) they are far less likely to drift back to the hive they were shaken from. The shaken bees should then be put in the brood hive overnight before installing the cell bar with the queen cups. They will know they are queenless and will literally run to start feeding the queen cells. If you can, establish the brood box at least 4 kilometers away from the hives you shook the bees from. If you cannot do this, expect to find that in the morning about 50% of the bees you shook have gone back to their hives! I think this will solve your problems. Good luck. Lloyd Lloyd Spear, Owner Ross Rounds, Inc. Manufacturers of Ross Rounds Comb Honey Equipment, Sundance Pollen Traps and Custom Printer of Sundance Labels. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: -- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and other info --- ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::