Mystery Queen

Every once in a while a bee will fly in completely covered in neon yellow pollen.

I opened hive #1 today to find no sign of the queen cell. It is as if it had never existed. If the queen cell was a desperate attempt to requeen I will not know if it worked for 5 days after the disappearance of the queen cell, which is approximately how long it would take a virgin queen to mate and settle in to egg laying.
Everything I have read says that a queen cell on the edge of a comb is a swarm queen, but there is no way this colony is preparing to swarm. They just do not have the mass of bees it would take. Or they've gone completely of  the deep end.

I am very concerned that there is something wrong with this hive. I finally pulled a couple bars back to try and locate some brood or eggs and found a few cells with larva but the cells looked dry and all the cells that were capped around them were drone cells. If the queen is only laying drone eggs that is bad news.

I started this endeavor believing that the bees know best. But I am realizing that the cost of finding out if this is true is the possible loss of this hive. I guess I need to be O.K. with that or I need to seriously consider introducing a new queen.

This is a comb they began building a month ago and they have never finished it. This was my first clue that things may not be going right. They should be building comb like crazy for the impending nectar flow.

But for now I will wait a week to see if there is an increase in population and I will check then for more progress on the brood.
I have put in a syrup jar and a pollen patty to help things along.

If it doesn't look better by July 1st I will think about taking drastic measures by introducing a comb of brood from hive #2 so they can raise a queen if they need one.