Dave Johnson wrote:
 
> A healthy, overwintered colony of midnight (hybrid) bees swarmed on April
> 6th and 9th.  A careful inspection on the 9th revealed several empty queen
> cells, a couple maturing queen cells, and some capped brood.  An inspection
> today (April 23rd) yielded no brood in any stages of development and all
> queen cells empty.
>
> Has this colony become queenless or is there still time for a virgin to mate
> and lay?  Do I need to introduce a young, mated queen to this colony?  Or do
> I just need patience?
 
Almost always this is normal so don't panic.  A new  queen  should
be  laying  within  21  days of *her* emerging, but until then the
colony can look desolate.  Dave Grren's comment about behaviour id
good -- if the the colony is calm then they have a queen.
 
Multiple empty queen cells suggests that you have  lost  secondary
swarms  as well as the prime swarm.  This happens whilst there are
still plenty of bees and multiple queens.  The  queen  you  almost
certainly  have  will  probably  have  emerged  after the date you
expect because  the  first  queens  that  emerged  went  with  the
secondary  swarm(s).   There's  nothing  you can do about than now
except wait, however you can plan for the next time it happens.
 
Probably, you need to know how to make an  'artificial  swarm'  so
the  bees  do  what  you  want, not what they want.  You can use a
variation on this to recover the situation if you catch the  prime
swarm when it first goes.
 
Never put a new queen into  a  'queenless'  colony  unless  you're
_really_  sure they're queenless or you'll waste a queen -- always
test first with frame of brood -- if  they  draw  emergency  queen
cells then they really are queenless.
 
Regards,
--
Gordon Scott          [log in to unmask]   Compuserve 100332,3310
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Basingstoke Beekeeper [log in to unmask]