So I am a very new bee keeper and very excited. I tried last year to get started with 2 hives and I lost those hives to small hive beetle before they could get a good start. I received my bees late in the season, it had been warm and everything bloomed early last year, due to warm winter all the pest bugs were bad last year (I am in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA by the way), and the idiot new-bee keeper (me) set up the hives in too shady a spot. It was a perfect storm of problems I think.
Anyway on to this problem. I decided to try again this year. I set my hives in a sunnier spot (but now they are closer together than I would like I think). We had a good winter. I got the bees last Monday and everything is in bloom. Things are looking good! I put my bees on their hives last Monday and then on Sunday I opened them up to give them a quick check and remove my queen cages. One hive looks AWESOME. The other looked ok, but the big thing was the queen was dead in her cage. She was alive when I put her in there but it looks like she never made it out of the cage alive. I left her in there knowing that if the body leaves so will the bees. I can't get a new queen from Kelley until June 11th. Will this hive survive that long with no new brood? Will it survive until it can get the new queen out, get her to lay brood, and get that brood hatched? Should I take a frame with some brood out of the other (still fledgling) hive and add it into the dead-queen hive? The hives are close together (Right next to each other now actually), if I remove the queens body will they just drift over into the other hive? That could be ok for me, to get the other hive really roaring wouldn't be bad since they are just starting. To make matters worse I will be going out of town June 13th, so that queen will have to come quick. Thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your help.