Hi All,

One of my hives has me puzzled this summer. It was started from a package
in late April, took off fine, nice brood pattern, ect.
Then it appeared to have lost its queen in early June. They were making
queen cells, no new eggs, and I could not find the marked queen.
By early July the queen cups were all open but no eggs being laid. So I
place a frame of new eggs from another hive with this one just to make
sure.
Two weeks later they are all capped, no queen cups?? I thought, they must
have a queen; she just hasn't been laying yet- this was about July 17.
I went back to this hive today (aug 7) no eggs, only capped drone cells in
a tight pattern! I've seen birds eating my bees this summer, maybe the
attempts at queen making were the birds’ lunch.
I don't know if there is a laying worker or what, but I definitely have a
problem with this hive. So I intend to place this broodless hive on top of
a split, with a good queen, using the newspaper method.
Would anyone like to offer comments, or have seen a similar problem?

Thanks,

Don
Mohegan Lake, NY

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