My Hive has no eggs, larva, capped brood, or laying queen?
First, make sure you are able to spot eggs and larva. See “Tips for spotting eggs & larva”. If you are confident there are no eggs, larva, or capped brood, then you almost certainly have a queenless hive. The most important question at this point is how long have they been queenless?
- If there is still capped brood in the hive, then there is a good chance the hive has a virgin queen that hasn’t started laying yet, but should soon. Give the hive a frame of eggs and larva from a stronger hive (see how to here), and check back in 2 days. If they are beginning to raise queen cells all over the frame (see “Queen cells vs queen cups”) then they are queenless, and you will need to add a queen. If they don’t raise queen cells, give them another week, and you will most likely begin to see eggs from a new queen. If you don’t, give them another 2-3 days. If there is still nothing, then proceed with adding a new queen. If you don’t have a frame of brood to give the hive, just wait another week then check back for eggs.
- If they have no brood, not even capped brood, they have been queenless for at least 21 days. In that span of time they should have been able to successfully raise a new queen, and she should have begun laying. Assuming your hive is strong enough to survive (see “When to give up on a hive”) then give them a frame of brood from a stronger hive (not necessary if you don’t have a second stronger hive) and give them a new queen as quickly as possible. Check out how to install a new queen and “Ordering & receiving queens".
- Purchase Queens Here