Behavior changes in Hive when Queenless or awaiting her Majesty's birth

[Jessaboo]

As I have mentioned here, I am a very new beekeeper (my one month anniversary just passed...) and had quite a few interesting experiences in the past month including losing my marked queen.

I started with a 5 frame nuc (a really super PACKED nuc) that I transferred to a 10 deep. I inspected the hive at least once a week (probably more often than I should have) looking for eggs and/or a new queen and, although I knew there was a swarm cell and could swear I heard some queen piping at one point, was not able to find queen or eggs. Otherwise the hive was working - honey production was going well. Brood cells were shiny and cleaned out.

Most of the info both here, on the web and in lots and lots of books talk about other "signs" of queenlessness - particularly a noisy hive and a more angry hive.

I think my hive may have been the most quiet in the history of bees. If you stood with the hive open and your eyes shut (which I don't recommend, by the way) you would have no idea that there were bees around. I also did not have any aggressive bees - they were as tame as could be and didn't even need smoke.

So, crappy weather kept me out of the box for more than a week and when I checked this weekend, low and behold - a nice fat queen who has already been at work laying eggs so I have some larvae and the hive is back on track.

What I have noticed, however, is that the entire behavior of the box has also changed - there is definitely a different "spirit" to things and, obviously, they are now bringing in nectar AND pollen but the thing that is most noticeable is the fact that during the interim between old queen and new there were no guard bees and no scenters (if that is what they are called) which are now clearly at work.

Anyone have a similar experiences or explanation? Is it possible I just didn't have any girls "of age" to do this job and it happened to coincide with the queen rearing? I certainly saw plenty of "observation flights" going on during this time?

Just curious if this hive is ruggedly individual or if others have seen this kind of behavior.

Thanks!

[Moonshae]

I did a cutout earlier this month, and it had swarmed previously, so the hive was full of ripe queen cells, but no queen. I found the presumably mated queen last week, she was nice and fat, but she hadn't started laying yet; no sign of eggs or larvae. I cracked the lid today (I found the entrance reducer on the ground, wanted to make sure there weren't any unwelcome guests!), and looked under both deeps. Through it all, I didn't notice any change in hive temperament, sound, anything. However, these bees even during the cutout were the calmest bees I'd ever seen (not that I have a whole ton of experience), and I still say that, with 5 swarms captured and 5 packages added this year to my overwintered hives.

I wonder if the increasing temperature is more the cause of more bees hanging out on the landing board than the state of the queen in the hive? More bees will hang there as it gets warmer, for sure.