Well...it happened. Our hive is definitely queenless.
We checked today, and all we saw were capped drone cells. We have about 5 or 6 bars of comb partly drawn out.
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| Domed cells spell DOOM for the colony. |
We ordered another queen a week ago, but apparently they are on back order due to the weather. Also, I think the supplier wants us to come pick her up! We can't do that because we live several hours away. So our only other option is to find a nice beekeeper in the area who might let us have a couple frames of brood to cut out and put into our top bar hive so they can raise a queen.
Strange thing is, the colony is really very calm! They didn't seem agitated at all when we checked the comb, maybe just a little disheartened or confused. I hope that when we give them brood comb, they'll be stimulated to produce queen cells and raise one of their own.
Here are a few pictures from today's adventure:
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| Some drone cells at the bottom- you can see one uncapped cell. |
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| If you look closely, you can see the larvae in the cells. We watched workers feeding the drone brood. |
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| The comb is all yellow (just like our cars!) from all the pollen. |
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| I hope that some of those darker-looking cells are honey in the making. |
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