Ding Dong, the Queen is Dead
 

I opened up the hive today. I found the queen. However this queen did not have a paint spot on it. The last time I saw the original queen, half the paint spot had come off.

So I wasn't sure if this paintless queen is the original or a new one.

However, disturbingly, there was almost no brood.

Based on these two facts, it is most likely that my original queen is gone. She flew off with some bees, leading to the hive creating a new queen, or she died.

If this is in fact a new queen, my hive has superceded.

So the new progeny will be half SMR and half something else (from up in the nether where the drones fly).

No brood is doing to set my hive back two or three weeks.

Just how necessary is a queen for the survival of the hive?

I'm guessing without a queen, there is no hive, eh?

Is there like a honey season? In terms of production, etc. Or is it a year round thing?

What do your kids think of the hive? Mine would never set foot outside again.

Yes and no. Bees are a super-organism. Every different kind of bee is required. It's the colonies that reproduce, not bees by themselves.

In this case, the bees take a larva that was supposed to be a sister worker, and they feed her royal jelly continuously, not just the first 3 days, and she is born a queen. She flies off, mates, comes back, and she is the new queen.

Yes, the spring is the honey season. I think fall is next productive. Summer is third most. And of course winter is the least productive.

It depends on how warm your climate is. If it were warm enough, bees would operate year round. But not in Texas.