Hi everyone, I'm an amateur beekeeper with one hive. I had planned to split the hive early this spring, but unfortunately, I was caught up in work-related things, and my bees went ahead and conducted the split for me. :( The departing swarm stayed within the apiary for a week or so, but they were too high up in the tree they'd selected to allow me to capture them. (Not without shotgunning the base of their branch off, at any rate. I was almost tempted to try.) Anyway, so the next weekend after the swarm departed the hive, I went into the old hive to look for evidence of a queen. I didn't check every single frame, but I yanked 4 frames from the core of the brood chamber. I saw empty swarm cells, and capped drone brood (no doubt laid by the old queen, before she started to slim down). But there were no eggs, no larvae, and no capped worker brood. And the hive itself, while not necessarily mean, seemed a bit grumpy. So I checked again last weekend. The capped drone brood had emerged, but as before, their were no eggs, no larvae, and no capped brood. And this time, the hive was definitely mean. After the first weekend, I had hoped that there was a virgin queen in the hive, and she just hadn't started laying yet. But now, I think it's more likely that the virgin queen met with an untimely demise during one of her mating flights. If I had another hive, I'd swap a frame with some eggs on it, and see if the hive reared a new queen, but that's not an option. The only things I can think of to do are either 1) wait another week or so, on the off chance there is a queen in there and she just hasn't started laying yet, or 2) obtain a replacement queen and put her in the hive. If there truly is no queen in that hive, the bees should accept a new queen readily. Does anyone have any words of wisdom? Barring that, does anyone have advice on what type of queen would be appropriate for southwestern Pennsylvania, where our winters are sometimes not so mild? (I started this hive from a nuc I bought from a local beekeeper, who was raising his own queens last year; I have no experience in purchasing commercially reared queens.) Thanks, James