Help! No brood and a capped queen cell
Hi, I need help. I inspected my hives today. One of them was great. The other, a single brood box, which was a split late December, had lots of honey, but no worker brood, only a little drone brood. I also didn’t see the queen (usually do with this hive) and there was 1 capped queen cell at the bottom of a frame, with an empty smaller what looked like a practice cup. Will they right themselves with the queen cell, or does this indicate swarm? The hive is not overly full of bees.
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Hi Julie, If you have no worker brood and some drone, it is highly likely that the hive is queenless. If there is only 1 queen cell, they should not swarm and they may right themselves as you think. The swarm cells on the bottom of the frame are a rule of thumb and not the be all and end all. I would wait another 2 weeks before going in and seeing if she has hatched and mated, though it can take up to 3 weeks to begin laying.
Hope this helps. Craig