What's going on in my hive?

[marliah]

I bought a new hive setup about a month and a half ago. I have done a couple checks and am concerned. I bought a 5 frame nuc and the seller included a full frame of honey to get them started, I put them in an eight frame deep and as of yet they still have not built anything on the two empty frames....I checked 2.5 weeks ago and saw what I thought were queen cells and was hopeful we were just dealing with needing a queen and all would be well. Well today I checked again after a serious lack of activity the last few days and there's tons of bees in there but I still cannot find any brood ?? I pulled out the first frame to check for any evidence of eggs and saw only empty comb and about half the frame full of capped honey. When I looked down beneath where the frame was there was place where there was comb that had been attached to the fist and second frame, and rather large larvae moving around, obviously I had broken it open upon the removal of the first frame. Sigh. Could that have been yet another attempt at building a queen and I destroyed it? Would the bees still be functioning after a month and a half if there were no queen? A, I just being paranoid, why wouldn't I be seeing any brood? Any ideas/advice to offer? The seller who has many years experience told me to add a super after 10 days so I did that but it's still all empty at this point, should I leave it on? Or wait until they fill the other two deeps and take it off for now?

Help!

[marliah]

Oh another thing is that the bees are rather clumped around the front right side of the entrance (which is right where that clump with the larvae was). Not sure if that helps in identifying what's going on...

[hankdog1]

were the queen cells capped or uncapped?

[marliah]

I honestly don't remember, the time I thought I saw queen cells they were kinda built off the bottom of the frame and looked like that peanut texture I have seen in photos. Today I have no idea what was going on in there, it was a mass built between two frames about 2-3 inches tall and there were at least two large white larvae I could see when it broke open. By large I would say twice the size of a worker bee.

[10framer]

pictures would help.  next time take pictures of the frames and post them.

[GSF]

marliah;

Not meaning to insult your intelligence but can you distinguish between the larva of bees/wax moths/ and or hive beetles?

[marliah]

It's not moths or beetles, was defiantly bee built whatever it was, from researching it appears it may have been drone comb. I emailed the person who sold me the bees and he said it sounds like they are queen less and he will give me a new 3 lb package in the spring but its too late in the year to requeen and they would have time to build up. The major clue in was the lack of building, which without a queen would make sense cause as the brood that was there hatched they were just replacing it with honey. So I guess I'm just going to leave them till later fall and check then, maybe somehow they will pull through but I don't think my poking around in there will do any good. From what the local beekeeper said sounds like they are to be written off and start over in the spring. I am bummed, this is the second hive loss I have had since is started beekeeping (last one absconded while I was on vacation 3 years ago).

So here's a question, when fall comes if they haven't miraculously pulled through, hatched a queen and built up, what do I do with these frames of honey to keep them usable tip spring so the new package an use them? Juts leave them in the hive?