Thanks so much, Luvin honey! I'm going to have to check my book to remind myself what a swarm cell or supercedure cell looks like. I remember the emergency queen cell, the worker cell and the drone cell but that's it. :-D
As for the drone thing, what I meant was that there weren't mainly drone cells in the hive as that would mean either the queen's mating flight was unsuccessful and she is laying only drones, or she is dead and workers have started laying drones. Otherwise, I'll leave it up to them to decide how many drones they want. :)
I'm really hoping to find a nice, healthy queen inside, who is raring to lay some eggs in nice, straight, orderly, little combs. ;) I'm just so afraid of what I'll find when I do finally crack that lid. Supposedly my gear will be shipped tomorrow. I haven't been able to locate any equipment to use in the meantime and without even a smoker I'm just not confident enough to get in there.
Thanks so much for all the tips. I'm going to have a checklist with me to read just before I get in there and your list will be the core of it. :)
(edited to make more sense...)