One more hive

Our most recent check on our hives, earlier this month, led us to believe that two of them had died. One of them was dismantled and put away. The other was left to be dealt with later. Another warm, sunny day today brought the bees out. And I spotted that the hive we thought was dead was, well, very much alive. It has been an odd hive as it had a queen that was laying only drone eggs. A colony only producing drone brood is under a death sentence so its apparent death earlier this month was not unexpected. Today I saw workers flying in and out of the hive. It could be that the previous queen was killed off by the hive in time to replace her with a new queen or it could be that the existing queen has sorted herself out and has started laying correctly. We will inspect the hive soon so we should be able to get a better picture of what's happening.