Sooo ok here's teh thing, I lost some hives this winter, one survived, a pretty quite hive, well last week or so I opened it up on a nice warm day. found the bees had alot of dead on the bottom board. Which I cleaned off. They had it seemed moved up into the honey super I left on for food over the winter. No unusal things there , but ,, the bees are so quite you would think they were dead, I examined the frames in the brood. no eggs at all. checked in the upper super and they have cleaned out some area's and are opening up the frame, however they are still pretty quite and no eggs at all... in fact the first few warm days they came out. Now on the nicest days no one comes out. There are lots of bees in there, a cluster the size of a pie plate. covering at least 4 frames.
Well so I decided after a long thought and asking question, that I needed a new queen. or either don't have one. So I got a queen today. I put her in the hive. I just layed the box I made for her and her attendents. I used a little grass oil, and in she went. The bees didn't seem to even care????? A few like maybe 20 climbed up the bank. They didn't bite at it, buzz at all. Just walked around and seemed to be just looking. I mean no real response at all. I am really perplexed. Has anyone ever seen this action on a hive?? Suggestions very welcome.