Sad Tidings

I just made a very depressing visit to the bees. I was so happy to be headed out to see them. Three kids were napping and the weather is fine after so much rain. I had visited them a week ago and had some suspicion that the new swarm was queenless... now I am pretty much sure.

They did have pollen and nectars stores... and they had been doing a little comb building. But I didn't see any eggs, larva, or capped brood (bees about to emerge from metamorphosis). What I did see were big capped domed cells scattered all over the comb.That could mean either they have viable queens cells that could hatch a virgin queen. Or, in response to long-time queenlessness a worker or several workers have started laying. But, because workers don't have fertilized eggs all they can produce is drones. I suspect it is the later senerio, because if there had ever been a laying queen there would at least be some capped brood getting ready to join the work force. I snapped a couple of pictures in hopes of really taking a closer look back on my computer screen but I didn't get good shots through my veil. I'm feeling sad and don't want to be a Negative- Nancy, so I'm going to log off now and do the laundry. It's just such a bummer. This is my last remaining colony. I joined the other sad hive with this one last week in hopes that the infusion of comb and bees could help the swarm colony out. But, it appears not. (Hence the blue tarp behind the smoker.) Oh well. There's always next season, right?

It's hard to make out 'cause of the blur, but if you look you can see the bumps in the comb I was referring to above.  drone comb or queen cell?