It's hard to tell, but that's me (Wendy) standing next to my (now) queen-less hive.

We had just opened it in the hope of pulling honey, but found instead - not enough honey and what's worse.....no larve or eggs.  The queen does slow down laying this time of year, but still expected to see some eggs/larve.  First we saw some drone cells, which I didn't expect to see this time of year, as the drones will be dying off now or be kicked out of the hive before winter.

Then, we found the queen cells.  2, maybe 3 queen cups on the bottom of one frame.

Now I have to decide whether to re-queen quickly with a proven layer, or let the bees finish a queen.  The queen cells weren't capped, so my guess is it would be another 2 weeks before she'd start laying.

Yikes!  time to talk to a veteran bee-keeper!

Still it was fun:) with my dear friend and bee expert Laurie Cellar!