I just had a careful look at your photos. That doesn’t look typical of a used queen cell to me. It is a bit thick and short. Are you certain that there was royal jelly and a grub in it?
Second hive, yes there are lot of queen cups. Unfortunately none of your photos shows the inside of the cups, so it is hard to know whether they are occupied by a grub. I don’t see any very young larvae or eggs, but there is both capped and uncapped brood. As the photos all look like they are from the same frame, it is hard to assess whether you have a laying queen in there now.
You should read that document I linked for you above!
The thick QC was a heck of a lot longer and peanut shaped when I inspected on Monday. I thought it was a beautiful QC (but I am new to this ). This is the hive that swarmed. I shall leave it a fortnight and see whats happening then.
Would you suggest a second inspection of the hive with the queen cups to see whats inside them and if I can see any eggs? If there are grubs inside the queen cups but no eggs I guess i should let nature take its course. Not sure what could have happened to the queen!
Im presuming that’s the Queen? So we were right in thinking there arent any eggs and also they are not about to swarm but replacing her? I wonder how/why she died.
Just really asking for confirmation that its the Queen…I presume now I just leave them to do their re queening procedure!
We have had a really strange year. Most of the country has had no rain for two months. Lots of honeybound hives. There will be lots of swarms when it starts raining.
Although irrelevant now she does have legs just a poor photo of them. She has two at the front and two at the back. Could she have died from being rolled? I believe this Queen was about 2 years old…
Hi Henny, @Dawn_SD meant missing as in does not have all six. Sometimes dead queens are found outside a hive…I haven’t looked back over your posts on this topic in detail, but as I understand it and have witnessed, a colony can have multiple queens running around in there for a while (usually virgin ones) until they sort themselves out ie. some get killed.
). This is the hive that swarmed. I shall leave it a fortnight and see whats happening then.
So we were right in thinking there arent any eggs and also they are not about to swarm but replacing her? I wonder how/why she died. 
Sometimes dead queens are found outside a hive…I haven’t looked back over your posts on this topic in detail, but as I understand it and have witnessed, a colony can have multiple queens running around in there for a while (usually virgin ones) until they sort themselves out ie. some get killed.