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My guess is an under bred queen. They know she didn't party hard enough on her flight. I would remove the feeder and check again in another week. I am thinking they are replacing her with known eggs, rather than supplied eggs.

Wally and Rob--Thanks for your observations and theories. We'll sit tight and check next week.

Hi Rob and Wally,

I checked the hive yesterday (Saturday) afternoon because of the rainy weather ahead. I saw very few of what I perceived to be capped worker brood on one frame (other than on the frame you donated, Rob). I saw a few more well-placed eggs in cells. I saw a few more capped drone than last week. The capped brood on your donated frame is still capped, by the way. I didn't see the queen, but I did see about 6 bees studiously working on the same (?) queen cell that we saw before--although I couldn't really detect anything in particular (living) inside. There are still plenty of bees doing what bees do. The hive is still fairly calm. Should I go ahead an purchase a queen??

Thanks for your advice! Jeanne

Is that the end of the story?

Latest Update. The queen was destroyed yesterday at the advice of Wally. (Rob and Wally--thanks again for coming over and giving your assessment.) He confirmed that we had a drone-laying queen. I ordered a new queen from Brushy Mtn that I will be picking up on Saturday morning. In the meantime--Rob placed another frame of uncapped eggs into the hive to see if the colony will make a new queen. I have been instructed to look into the hive in about 4 days to see if there is any queen cell development.

Stay tuned!

Wally and I both had a look yesterday. The queen looked good, but was not laying fertilized eggs. As I watched her, she walked over an open cell, did not back in, but just let an egg slide out and down the edge of the cell. A few seconds later she let one slide out on top of capped worker brood from the frame I had brought over before.

Wally did away with her and several queen cells they were making from what had to be her eggs (based on when my frame went in the hive). I went into one of my hives and brought a frame that had some freshly laid eggs on it and we put it in the hive.

Wally told Jeanne to call Steve at Brushy to see what they could do about a queen. I still think this one was shaken in the package, killed the marked queen, and got poorly mated at best at some point. She looked too big to me to be a virgin.

Jeanne will check in about 4 days to see if they are building queen cells. If no queens are available, she will let them build them out and hopefully produce a well mated queen. If she is able to get a queen in a relatively short time, I told her to check with Wally about how to introduce it in relation to the queen cells they may have produced.

Brushy is having a package pickup on Saturday. Shane has said they always get extra queens in case someone has an issue. So they should have some extras this Saturday.

O.K. Jeanne, don't leave us hanging. How did you wind up getting a new queen and how is she functioning?

Hi Rob!

I receive the queen from Jack Tap via overnight mail and inserted the queen cage in the hive.

I checked last Saturday and I saw the queen--so I know she's alive at least. Without my reading glasses it was a bit difficult to detect whether or not she was laying eggs. I watched her abit and she seemed more energetic than the last queen, but I didn't see her depositing eggs.

I just checked the hive. In the upper deck I saw capped brood on the super that you loaned us. I then looked into the lower hive box and saw on the third frame many well-placed eggs. Once I saw that I decided put everything back in order and leave them alone.

So far--so good! Thanks for asking!