I couldn't wait to look

Today, as I was watching my bees come and go from the hive, I was overcome by curiosity- what is going on in there?  It was a warm day, I'll be gone tomorrow and it's supposed to rain Saturday, I work Sunday, so... into the hive I went.
I was surprised at the large number of bees; I would expect the population to be noticeably smaller in a dying colony.
On the drone frame were many larva and a couple of dozen  capped drone cells.  I decided to leave it in for another week.  I could also see several drones.
Then I took a look at the brood frames, and on both sides of one frame was a hand-sized patch of capped brood cells!  I looked and looked for a queen, to no avail.  However, I doubt my ability to spot an unmarked queen.
Now I have to assume that if there are capped brood cells, there is a laying queen in there.  And, I believe, there were more capped cells than the larvae I saw on last inspection.  I would love to have had the camera with me.
I already emailed Jeremy to ask for his opinion.  I will post his reply.
I also scraped the honey comb off the frame that was in the house and put the sticky frame back into the hive for the girls to clean up.

What's going on here?

That was the subject of the email I sent to Jeremy Rose this afternoon.  Here's what happened-
The sun was out today, it was warm and calm.  The weather forecast is that it will be cooler tonight with a chance of rain, with rain and dropping temperatures over the next few days.  I had intended to go into the hive in 3 days, Saturday, but I decided to take a look today.  The weather on Saturday would most likely be unhealthy for the bees and besides, I was anxious to know what was going on in there.
The first thing I noticed was that there was still quite a bit of activity with lots of pollen coming in.  When I took the top off, there were a lot of bees on the Vivaldi box, and a lot of bees in the hive.  I had been expecting the population to be declining, so I felt encouraged.
I took off the two top supers with all their honey to get into the brood box.  I took out the drone frame- still lots of empty cells, but I'm sure I saw eggs in a few cells.  I looked closely and it looked like a single egg in the middle of the bottom of the cell.  Next, I got to the brood frames.  Still no capped cells.  Then I spotted larvae in a few cells in one area.  Oh, boy!, I thought, there's a laying queen in there!  I looked around to see if I could identify her, but, no.
Now what?  What's going on?  Do I have a new queen, and if so, do I wait to see how she does with mites or should I just go ahead and replace her?
So, I emailed Jeremy.  And he wrote back an hour later.
To quote him (the link is mine),  It has probably developed a laying worker.  Probably too late to requeen.  In a few days when the larvae pupate you will be able to see if they are all drones.  No big deal, happens a lot this time of year.  Just wait for it to die and then install new bees.
Ah well, I had a short time of thinking everything was ok. 
Hope springs eternal...

Big trouble in the hive

I went into the hive today to switch out the drone frame. Much to my surprise, there were no capped cells on the frame. In fact, there were only a lot of empty cells. No larvae and no eggs that I could see. Oh-oh, I thought. There should be something here by now.
So I did an inspection of all the frames in the brood box. My findings: no capped cells, no larvae, no eggs seen, lots of clean empty cells, no queen cells and, no queen! I looked in the super for the queen or brood; no luck.
I hadn't spotted the queen 2 weeks ago, but we hadn't really looked for her. Maybe she was gone already. I have no idea what happened to her. Maybe I dropped her or squished her. I'm not even 100% sure she's gone, but all signs indicate so.
I emailed Bob Mount, a local beekeeper regarding this, asking how long I can wait until replacing the queen. I know that the workers will start laying if no queen is present and then it's all over. He soon wrote back saying I need to re-queen right away. I wrote back to him asking if he knew a local source of queens. I also called Jeremy Rose and had to leave a message. If he has queens ready now, and he calls back today, I'll be off on a road trip to San Luis Obispo tomorrow.

Honey extractor built

A while back I decided to build my own honey extractor since the ones for sale are so expensive. I searched online and found several posts about making honey extractors. Nearly all of them used the same plan, namely bicycle wheels to hold the frames in some sort of barrel. I didn't want to go shopping for bicycle wheels or a big enough barrel. Finally I found this post. I liked the simplicity of the design.
Instead of wood for the discs, I bought a polyethylene cutting board at Goodwill. I figured it would be easier to clean. I got a plastic garbage can at Orchard, a threaded rod and nuts and washers. It only took a couple of hours to cut and assemble. Putting the rod into a power drill like a bit, I could spin the discs at high speed. The rod was a little wobbly, so I put a couple of bolts through the ends of the perforated plate to hold it in place. (I intend to replace them with something more aesthetically pleasing.) Things looked good, so I put a couple of empty frames in. This is the result:
There was only a small clearance between the frame and the edge of the can and since there was still a little wobble and the frames move a bit, they smashed against the side.
I figured I could either get a bigger barrel or move the slits on the discs closer to the center, deciding on the latter.
New cutting board, re-cut discs,take off old discs, put it all back together, spin with frames in place and success!
Here are the parts and the extractor assembled
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I will order a honey gate from Dadant and we'll have honey this fall.