It's difficult to diagnose a hive you can't see. You say you see eggs and larvae but no capped brood. I would expect capped brood this time of year, even in Vermont.
But sometimes there is a break in the brood cycle because of a supercedure or a swarm or a lack of pollen. It can take 28 days to get from when an old queen died to when a new queen is laying, so you often find a broodless colony, or one with eggs but no capped brood that is just not up to that point again. It's easy to mistake the reflection in the bottom of a cell (especially one that had brood in it before) for an egg or larvae. Huber commented on this back in 1791 or so and it's still true. Unless you're quite certain of what an egg looks like, it's possible there are none.
As far as where an egg should be, they aren't standing when they are first layed. They go through stages and one of those stages is the standing egg. It happens just before they hatch.
If you have other hives and you're in doubt about the state of a queen, my standard operating procedure is to give them a frame with eggs on it from another hive. That way they have the option to supercede a failing queen, or raise one if they don't have one. Usually if you give the bees the resources they will take care of things.