No eggs in the hive.

[infofly]

First season beekeeper here, I am very worried about my split that was doing very nice since June. They fully populated two deep boxes, a lot of honey and some pollen.
Last Saturday during the inspection, I did not find a single egg in the entire hive. There was a lot of capped brood, open brood and very young larva but no eggs. No queen cells either. I couldn’t find the queen. A week ago, eggs were everywhere – is this hive in trouble? How do I check the hive to locate the queen?

[Barry]

First, it is very difficult to find a queen in two deeps that are heavily populated. With there being open and capped cells of brood, I would not be too quick to intervene. We were all first year beekeepers and I have made my share of hasty management mistakes. Err on the side of caution and reluctance in this situation. Give it some more time and check out the cells in another week for eggs or a queen cell or a queen.

[paulnewbee1]

My 2nd year Berry is right just let things go and wait. Last year I thought I had the same problems. I let it go for two weeks checking each week about day ten I saw the queen. So relax we all worry which is a good thing.

Have a good day

[alpha6]

If you had a cold snap or the flow is over for the year, the queen and hive may be getting ready for winter...

[Ravenseye]

If they replaced your original queen, the new one takes a while to get going. I'd wait and see.

[Jeffzhear]

Some queens have a knack for hiding.

I agree with the others here, wait a bit and see what happens. From the way you put it "fully populated" there are plenty of bees. Some queens shut down during a derth, so maybe you are experiencing that.

[infofly]

Thank you for your input guys. I’ll wait until next Saturday and will see what happens next. I really appreciate your help.

Best regards.
PA.

[Yuleluder]

You did not mention if they had adequate stores. If there was no honey or nectar present, that could explain why there are no eggs.

[infofly]

Yes, there is plenty of capped honey. The second deep is mostly capped honey, little less in the bottom deep, and they started working on firts super.

Thanks

PA

[infofly]

There is something wrong with the queen. They started building new queen cells – supersede cells. At least 2 supersede cells were caped, two more were still open. I found only couple of eggs in drone cells. Should I let them make a new queen and wait until she starts laying. Is this not too late in season? I am located in the Shoreline area of Connecticut.

Does it make sense to make a nuc out of one of the queen cells?

On the other note I lost my second hive. It was a laying worker hive. Couple of weeks ago I shook all bees from that hive and got them new queen. They released her last Saturday. I was hoping everything is going to be OK but then on Tuesday this hive was robbed. Today there were no bees, hive was totally empty.

PA.

[Joseph Clemens]

It sounds like that hive may have absconded.