>Inspected today the hive described above with no queen, no eggs, loads of bees, and a handful of supercedure cells. Last week all the supercedure cells were capped. Today, all the supercedure cells were uncapped, but still no queen, no eggs, no uncapped larvae, and a listless inactivity from the hive in general despite being in the miiddle of nectar flow.
Should I order a new queen?
From when she emerges until she starts laying is about 12 days. If your eyesight isn't so good for seeing eggs you may not see larvae for another 4 or 5 days. If you can find a virgin queen, you're either lucky or VERY good. She is small, fast and afraid of the light. I'm pretty sure you have a virgin in there and if you order a new queen they will just kill it anyway, unless you find the virgin (extremely unlikely) and kill her.