Having faith in nature pays off

I took a look into the hives today, a last inspection until mid-July.  Over all, the apiary looks healthy.
There was capped brood in the remaining nuc.  The first two frames I looked at had very little drawn comb, the third had the brood; I looked no further not wanting to disturb the girls unnecessarily.
#1, in which, 10 days ago, I had seen the queen but no larvae, had lots of larvae and at least one frame of capped brood.  In this hive, too, I did not look further than needed.  Because there were so many larvae, I put the second deep box back on.  I did not want them to run out of room in the next 3-4 weeks when they will not be monitored. 
#2 seems to be the weakest colony.  They still have only a few frames of honey in the super and there just does not seem to be a lot of bees.  I did not inspect the brood boxes, only removed the MAQ from 2 and 3.
#3 is going strong.  There are lots of bees and the top super felt quite heavy.  I added a third super in hopes that it will be at least partially filled when next checked in July.
I did not go into Olea's.  I can look through the window and it seems that there are more bees.  At least there are fewer combs without bees on them.  I had wondered about taking out some comb and reducing the empty space in the box.  So I wrote to Les Crowder and asked.  His wife wrote back suggesting that I take a few bars of comb and place them in the nuc.  She did not know that all my hives other than Olea's are Langstroth.  I just left the hive as is, figuring that the bees know better than I and will manage.

Drones on their way

I was just watching the bees when I noticed that there were a lot of drones leaving Olea's hive.  They are on their way to the drone congregation area in hope of giving their all with a mating queen.
In case you can't tell, the drones are the larger, huskier bees with the larger eyes.

I just had to look today

Olea's swarmed 10 or 11 days ago.  I was anxious to see how it was doing, so I figured I had waited long enough.
I looked through the hive starting a couple of bars from the back all the way to the front.  There were a lot of drones, empty cells that looked like they had contained brood in the past.  No queen.  No larvae seen and no eggs appreciated.  I did see 3 uncapped queen cells.  There were a few capped cells that looked like drone cells on one of the back combs.
The usual question: What is going on? 
One must have faith in nature.  The bees know what they are doing.  I know that at least one queen has emerged.  Perhaps it is just too soon for her to have mated, started laying and the larvae large enough for me to see.  I will wait at least another week.  I have one nuc to fall back on if there is a need for a queen. (Only one nuc left; I sold the other one yesterday to a Ben Lomond beek.)

Let nature take its course

I looked into #1 today to see if it was queenright or not.  If not, I was prepared to combine the nuc with the feral swarm with it.  However, Maidi and I saw the queen.  There still was no visible larvae.  I have no idea why she is not laying.  I have two choices- replace her or not.  I decided to just let her bee (acknowledgements to Noah).  When we return from our upcoming travels, the hive will be thriving or not.  If not, I can repopulate with one of the nucs.
4 days ago I put sticky boards in all three hives.  I took them out today.  The count: #1, 4; #2, 7:
#3, <25!  The mite away quick strips are already in #2 and 3. 
 I did post a nuc for sale today, too.