17 days ago I noticed a Queen cell with larvae present in it. Today I attempted a hive inspection and saw no eggs, and a very small amount of brood. The hive was mostly honey and nectar. If a new Queen was born, how long should I wait until I see eggs? Just not sure if I should order a new Queen or not. I only have 1 hive so I can’t get resources from elsewhere to help. So should I wait for a possible new Queen to start laying, or order a new Queen?
Hi Nikki, welcome to the forum.
To answer your first question: After about 2 weeks from when the queen emerges, we should start seeing eggs. After 3 weeks we should be seeing sealed brood. When we see sealed worker brood, then we know that the queen got successfully mated.
For your second question: Definitely wait before ordering a new queen. Even if the new queen fails, I’d give the colony a frame of brood in all stages before ordering a new queen, on account that the colony could reject her.
If a colony starts building emergency queens, that would be a green light in my view for introducing a new queen. Do that while tearing all the emergency cells down. FWIW, I let my colonies continue with emergency cells.
Thanks Jeff! I will plan on waiting a couple more weeks before I check again for eggs and then will look again a week later for capped brood. Follow up question though - how long can a colony survive without a Queen?
Hello and welcome to the Flow forum. I am obviously not @JeffH 
Like all things in beekeeping, it depends… 
The straight answer is usually about 6-8 weeks. If there is no queen, and they can’t make a new one, most adult bees will live about 6 weeks, but they take about 21 days to go from egg to emerging into an adult. So it is a bit complicated by the life cycle, and the timing of the queen’s departure. The queen only takes 16-18 days to emerge - she has a faster development cycle.
I wouldn’t wait to see capped brood. If you see uncapped larvae in an orderly pattern, you likely have a laying queen. Laying workers are usually a bit more disorganized in their brood patterns
You’re welcome Nikki. I agree with Dawn’s answer. I would prefer to wait the whole 3 weeks, on account that I found young queens to be vulnerable to balling (killing) by the colony. Therefore I like to keep my early inspections brief. I lift the frame with the most activity partly out, then as soon as I see evidence of a successfully mated queen, I quickly close the hive back up again.
If I don’t see evidence, like yesterday for example, I slip in a frame of brood in all stages, for the colony to raise a new one.
In my case yesterday, I found a frame nearly full of sealed brood, with young brood & eggs that replaced recently emerged bees. I was happy with that, on account that a full frame of brood will add 3 frames of young bees to the colony of mostly older bees. I placed a tag on the hive, 10th of the 7th. Then I’ll know to check on the 10th of next month for a new queen. The extra week is on account that the queen hasn’t emerged.
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Thank you both for taking the time to answer my questions! I have a reminder set on my calendar to check on the third week. And just crossing my fingers in the meantime. 
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You’re welcome Nikki, I put 2 reminders out myself yesterday. Two nucleus hives were very cranky. So I killed the queens, then swapped the brood for brood from placid hives for the colonies to make new queens with.