Hi Joseph,
So basically what you're saying is it doesn't matter if the bees have been queenless for 24 hours or 10 days, they're still quite likely to readily accept a new introduced queen? Or does the longer they go queenless make a difference to likelihood of queen acceptance?
Thanks,
Bob
Yes, queenless is queenless. But, like others have posted, if there are queen cells, eventually there will be a virgin queen, and after that a mated laying queen, so the longer its been since the hive became queenless the more difficult to successfully introduce a replacement queen, not impossible, but more difficult - due to the increased chances of complications like laying workers, viable queen cells hiding in unnoticed nooks in the frames, possible invasion by foreign queens (I wouldn't have considered this last one, except I've witnessed it myself).