I’ve checked hive 08-02 twice now and have found no queen, or eggs, or larva, or capped brood. All I have is lots and lots of honey being stored up. My supplier was supposed to have some queens last Thursday, but when I called him for a pickup, he thought it would be a much better idea to exchange out the nucs. I totally agreed. This hive has been without a queen for two weeks and is completely honey-bound. I put one bar in it a week ago and they’ve barely built any comb. When I took it out when I was packing the hive up Saturday, I noticed lots and lots of eggs. You would think that this is a good sign, that maybe I just missed finding the queen. Upon closer inspection you can see multiple eggs in each cell, a tell-tail sign of a laying worker. A very bad sign. Things have gotten so desperate in this hive that the infertile female worker bees are trying to lay eggs. An exchange is the only chance this hive had. So I packed them back into their carboard nuc box Saturday and headed out Sunday morning for an exchange. The weather was great. I kept two frames of honey and got three frames of capped brood, lots of bees, and a queen! He made our deal right.

When I installed them in my hive I went ahead and put in three bars to match the setup I already had in the other hive. Hopefully they can catch up in the wax building and I can start pulling out frames soon.

Here is the only comb they drew out. It is dead center on the bar.