Lots of honey stores, little brood - what's the problem?

[tjc1]

Went in to our school hive today. These girls have been very busy on any warm day hauling in pollen. Today, warmest day yet, and they were barely out. When I looked in, I found many fewer bees that in my hives at home, almost no brood, but lots of honey stores (in both the upper and lower deeps - my home hives are empty below). I did see the queen, who is a self-raised queen from last summer. Also, while my home hives had a good quantity of nectar in the combs, this hive looked pretty dry. I was wondering if maybe they don't have enough water (assuming that they need it to dilute honey for brood feeding). My home hives are right on a pond; the school hive doesn't have any nearby open water. Any other reasons why  this queen wouldn't be laying?

[drlonzo]

Sounds like she's out of semen from mating, or when she mated she did so with her own brothers which would cause diploid drone eggs which the worker bees would remove as soon as it hatched.  If it were me, i'd remove her, put in a frame from another hive with eggs and larva, maybe even some bees would help, but for sure remove queen, give hive tool test, and put in a frame with eggs and young larva to allow them to raise a new queen.

[buzzbee]

Give them a little syrup and see if that doesn't kick star things. Some breeds ramp up fast when a flow is detected rather than ahead of the flow.

[tjc1]

She was laying fine all summer and fall... This hive was a new package that swarmed very unexpectedly in June. (I caught the warm, and kept it in a nuc and then recombined with the original hive in September, after removing the old queen from the swarm).

Is there a reason that they would not use honey for brood rearing, when they have so much on hand? I will try giving them some syrup.

[marktrl]

One of my hives and plenty of stores but barely any brood and since I couldn't find the Queen I put a frame of eggs from another hive in it. Checked it a week later and no Queen cell but there was 2 frames of capped brood. After a hard search I found the Queen. Basically what I'm saying is that maybe the "dry" combs may have been loaded with eggs and the next time you look in you may just find those frames capped.