Is losing a queen common?

[rubeehaven2]

I have two hives and I re-queened one today, a cordovan queen.  I used a queen introduction frame for her and added some brood frames from my other hive. (The frames were far from full of brood!)

BUT, now my other hive, (from which I removed two brood frames) which has good population and loads of honey, appears to have a problem as well.  On most frames, the brood cells were very sporadic, I could only locate a very, very small amount of larvae, and even though I was not wearing my glasses, I could have sworn there were some cells with 2 or 3 eggs in them.  I should mention, there are two deeps and two medium supers on the hive.  The bottom deep has the sporadic brood on the frames, the second deep is full of honey.  The next, (super) is full of honey, and the top super has no comb even started and it has been there two weeks.   

Lordy, Lordy!  Do I need a second queen?

My main concern is if there is a queen in the hive, (just doing a very poor job), will the hive accept a new queen over her?  Will they kick her out if she isn't laying well?  This is only a 2nd year hive, so I would think the original queen would still be productive.  That is, if she is even alive.

Unsure what to do!

Thanks, Rich

[BlueBee]

All the bees in your hive now (except for said queen) will be dead by winter.  Your queen will start raising winter bees in August so it’s important to have a working queen come August.  That said.... 

Two or three eggs and no brood could mean that hive has requeened itself.  Young queens misfire.  Was your queens marked?  When you look for a queen in the hive you’re concerned about, what do you find?   A new young queen would be a good thing IMO.  Keep an eye out it for a week (if there is a queen in there) and see how she does. 

[Michael Bush]

Bees usually manage to requeen themselves when they find a queen missing or wanting.  Usually when you find no brood you have a virgin queen who isn't laying yet.  But sometimes they are hopelessly queenless.  A frame of open brood and eggs is always good insurance.
http://bushfarms.com/beespanacea.htm

[abennett]

Depends if you see queen cells being built, if so, queen cells being built on the face of the frame usually means that there is something wrong with original queen and they do supersedure cells.  Multiple eggs in cells could mean a new queen and it could also mean that when a hive is queen less the worker bees will grow ovaries and lay unfertilized eggs which will be drones.