Checking for a Queen
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Only one finding is certain: an egg standing upright on the cell floor.
Only one finding is certain: an egg standing upright on the cell floor. Everything else is a clue. A calm colony with an even hum and pollen coming in points to a queen; agitation and no eggs point against one.
If it remains unclear, the queen test helps: hang in a comb with young open brood from a healthy colony. If the colony draws queen cells on it, it was queenless; the start of a cell can be seen after about four days. If it draws none, a young, still unmated queen is very likely present. Whether she is laying only becomes clear weeks later, and in practice the two are often confused.
After the usual interventions there are set deadlines: a swarm or artificial swarm at the latest seven days after hiving, a colony that has swarmed at the earliest 21 days after the swarm, a combined brood nucleus after 25 to 30 days, a colony about a week after a queen is introduced. Several eggs per cell and high-domed cappings on worker cells mean humped brood; a colony like that is not given a queen at all.