Sadly two of my three hives from last year have died out :(
The remaining hive is hanging in there but has not advanced much at all since my first inspection in February. There is a small cluster of bees, and I've been able to spot the queen (with so few it isn't hard). I keep checking to look for more brood, improving population. My last inspection, I was disappointed to see only a few dozen capped brood and maybe 100-200 bees. They aren't eating up the pollen patty I put in there. I'm not seeing much in/out activity at all.
The weather here in the Sacramento area has been unusually rainy and cold up until now, so I was thinking that perhaps the queen was taking her time laying new eggs and since it takes a few weeks for those to develop it was just taking a bit longer. Or maybe the queen is failing and the her last hundred followers are sticking around to see if she gets her act together. I dunno...
Any advice?
I checked a fellow beek's hives 2 weeks ago that had stayed at 2 frames since Feb. There was a frame of pollen on each side of the 2 frames acting as a wall for the queen. I moved them to the outside and opened the nest with a couple of empty frames. One week later, she was laying in 6 to 8 frames.
As another newbee I am going through EXACTLY the same thing you are - my hive is acting the same. Meanwhile my son's hive is bustling and crowded with bees. In my hive there are open frames available right next to the bees so I don't think the queen feels blocked. You would think if the queen is going downhill this much that the workers would start queen cells to supersede her, but no, they just sit there and sulk... Baffling to me also. I am going to try re-queening.
Jan C.