Hi Tim, yes, I was concerned yesterday when I did not see any larvae or eggs, or anything that was obviously capped brood, and certainly did not see the queen. But as a newbie, I did not know if that lack of brood etc. was normal for this time of year. (I assume those sunken, “capped” orange cells are some kind of pollen storage?)
The previous inspection we did was August 17. We did see larvae and capped brood, but no eggs and no queen. I made a post about it on these forums, but the consensus seemed to be that the larvae and capped brood were indicative of a healthy queen.
Weirdly, in that August 17 inspection we saw four queen cells, but they were not capped. @Dawn_SD said they were probably just practice. Those “play cups” were still there yesterday, but aged now.
I feel badly about opening up the hive again to look closely for eggs, having disturbed the hive for an hour yesterday taking each frame out of both boxes to inspect and photograph, but I guess being queenless would be pretty dire at this point in the season …
Can someone help me identify what kind of cells are in the middle of this close up from yesterday? Are those larvae? And the cells above, those are capped honey, right, not capped brood?
