what is going on?

[mark g]

I have a colony that consists of what used to be a brood nest in 2 deeps and 1 super it filled this spring. On May 10 swarn cells (6) with eggs,larva and jelly were seen but left alone. The colony swarmed on May 16 after 4 days of rain. The swarm was captured and the queen was present. May 19 eggs and a queen were seen in the hive. June 4 the swarm cells had eggs in them they were removed. June 6 a more thorough inspection revealed on all 20 frames there was 1 capped worker cell, 40-50 capped drone cells, 2 frames with small clusters(2) of eggs, larva and what looks like drone cells being drawn out in worker cells. 2 frames of pollen(90% of frame)are on each side of egg clusters the rest is capped and uncapped honey. The queen was not found. What is goimg on?

[ScadsOBees]

You may either have a poorly mated (new) queen or a laying worker.

Laying workers tend to lay multiple eggs in a cell, nearer to the side of the cells, although the workers clean them up sometimes before you can see them.

If you can find the queen at some point, and there is mostly drone capped cells, then you need to either re-queen or kill the bad queen and combine the swarm back with them.

[Rod Weakley]

If you have a 2nd hive that has a frame of eggs put that in the hive and see if they start a queen.

[Michael Bush]

>On May 10 swarn cells (6) with eggs,larva and jelly were seen but left alone. The colony swarmed on May 16 after 4 days of rain. The swarm was captured and the queen was present. May 19 eggs and a queen were seen in the hive.

OK. They swarmed on May 16. You saw eggs on May 19th. These eggs are still from your queen that swarmed three days ago and will hatch the next day (May 20th). They are NOT from the new queen, because she won't be laying until probably May 30th. You saw a virgin queen.

>June 4 the swarm cells had eggs in them they were removed.

Those would be from the new queen, so she must be laying now.

>June 6 a more thorough inspection revealed on all 20 frames there was 1 capped worker cell

Since she would have just started laying about six days ago, and brood doesn't get capped for nine days, I would not expect ANY capped worker cells for another 3 or 4 days. That one is probably an old one left from the previous queen that is dead. The new queen's brood is not going to get capped for another few days. It sounds like everything is going along perfectly normal to me.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesmath.htm