Hive 3 appears queenless

[Georgia Boy]

Hive 3 a nuc that I got a month ago.  The first week the bees pulled a lot of the larvae and pupae out and discarded. I was told it was probably from chilled brood. I never could find the queen and it had queen cells from the first week. The hive does not sound queenless. The loud roar and is going about the business of storing  nectar and pollen. On today inspection I could not find the queen and there is still one possible two queen cells. There aren't any eggs, larvae or very many capped brood. I am confused. Scared if I don't do something like add a frame of eggs and larvae I may lose the hive.

If a queen hatched how long does a mating flight last?

How long before she swells enough to tell her from the other bees?

If they didn't have a queen shouldn't there be some signs other than no eggs? Like the bees acting differently?

If I do add a frame of egg and larvae do I also add a shake of bees to the hive and if I shake bees into this hive will they fight and kill each other?

Here are the pictures of Hive 3.











Thanks for y'all's help.

David

[millipede]

It looks like you have no or very little brood. I would venture to guess that you lost your queen. Looks like you definitely have one maybe up to three queen cups.
If it was my hive, I would take out the least active frame and add a good frame of brood from a thriving colony. I might even leave the nurse bees on it just to be sure. I think if you do nothing you will lose that colony.
Adding some brood will not hurt even if you have a queen that has not yet mated. It will just help increase your colony's strength. If you don't have a queen then it gives them even more opportunities to make a new one.

[JWChesnut]

You should consider cutting your losses and combining.  If you have an unseen newly mated queen, that might start laying  but hasn't yet, the earliest natural brood cohort won't add materially to the worker population until the middle of July.  I cannot tell your population, but if there has been no real brood since a package introduction, you are likely down to just a couple of thousand bees.  This means you have 2nd half of July to mid-September to build a winter colony.

I would hold off on adding eggs, as a 2nd queen cup cycle is unsustainable without lots of donor capped brood, and that simply weakens your other new hives.   You could add some capped brood and buy a ready-to-lay queen, you need to make that decision really soon, or you simply run out time in the season.  Consider the cost on the populations of your other hives before committing to heroics to save this one -- and some of this is determined by race of bee.  Italians might be stimulated to keep laying through the late-summer, but some races are going to cut back, no matter how much you want them to build.

How late in the year does your season run?  My drones are run out October 1st, and the hives contract Oct-Dec.

[10framer]

i'd add a frame of emerging brood as well as a frame of eggs.  at that point you have a month before you might start seeing eggs.  that may leave you sumac and sourwood in your area.  you won't have a strong enough hive to really take advantage, though.  so, you've got a hive you'll need to start feeding early to encourage them to keep building up for winter.  or you could merge them and have a strong hive that you may be able to split later.
i was just thinking you'd been awfully quiet lately.