The question for every hive that I’ve inspected is, “Where’s the queen?”
Sometimes the queen is marked and that really helps find her. Sometimes she recently emerged and is not marked and for me, that makes it more difficult spot her among the thousand of other bees moving around the frame I’m holding. if you don’t find the queen, there are indicators that she is present. There are larvae and capped brood, but the main indicator is standing eggs. My understanding is these were laid in the past day and indicate that there is a queen at least that recently.
Standing egg are hard to see because they are so small and in the bottom of a cell.
