I mentioned last week that my hive #1 had no eggs or brood in it, so I put a fame of eggs and brood into it from another hive to see if they drew out some queen cells. Went in today and there were no queen cells drawn on the frame, but again, that frame was the only one that had brood on it. No eggs anywhere else in the hive. The bees are still bringing in pollen and filling cells with nectar.
This hive had an emergency queen that emerged in late April or early May, and took about a month to start laying, that was performing well through the summer. My guess is that the hive either 1) swarmed, or 2) superceded the emergency queen a few weeks ago. Either way, there's gotta be a virgin queen or a just mated queen running around in there, soon to start laying. Does this assessment sound right?
What would others do if this was your hive?
-- Kris