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Got rid of my last colony of bees over the weekend. 18 to zero in 6 weeks. Taking at least a year off the hassles of beekeeping, and maybe a lifetime. Bye y'all, have fun!

No, wax moth are drawn to brood comb because their larvae like to eat the brood cocoons etc. I've had dry super comb in the garage, not in a box, for two years that hasn't been touched by wax moth. Brood comb, on the other hand, is infested quickly

Our buddliea are usually covered in butterflies. This year, barely any. Maybe the buddliea are flowering early

As long as there is decent bee traffic too and fro the entrance, and you aren't in some kind of forage desert, I would never feed in this weather unless the nuc seemed dangerously light. You could reassure yourself by simply weighing the nuc or hefting it. What brand of nuc is it?

I think you have basically done the right thing. Having nuc'd the queen, it's ideal finding a virgin ready to come out, as you don't have to go through the lottery of picking a cell. Why would removing the virgin and leaving an unhatched cell make any sense? A bird in the hand ... If you had a...

Zero, by definition

Very unlikely they went without capped or nearly capped cells. Frustrating I know. Check again fully in a few days as you say.

Virgin queen going out on a mating flight can look like that, sometimes But if you are sure there is no swarm activity, you are presumably sure there are no new queens either

Was it?

Same view really As BMH says, you can force bees to draw foundation by putting it in the middle of the nest, and pumping syrup into them, and I am sure that approach has merit. But that's not what the OP is asking.

Sure, you can force all sorts of behaviour, especially if you feed, but naturally, from around now on, they'll start preferring to fill the comb they have - especially if the hive is already more than big enough for winter (i.e. a brood and a super), so it's hardly surprising that the OP is...

We are past the longest day. Bees are thinking about storing now, not building new comb.

What a creepy comment

Indeed. Though I'm still waiting for the science you implied you were about to inject?

Log off Try logging on to a chicken-keepers forum and posting the following "Hi guys. Feel bad about this. Had a chicken which needed to be euthanised so I tied a plastic bag round its head. It took two hours to die. Can I eat the eggs?" You'd get the RSPCA called out to you, never mind a bit...

It appears not Your original post made no mention whatsoever of CO2, and you clearly taped them up with the intention of suffocating them. You are now trying to latch onto other people's CO2 idea and claim it was what you were intending all along. Why would you wait 2 hours before applying CO2...

Petrol? Soapy water? Has your mentor not heard of these things? Why on earth make them suffer for two hours? Utterly inhumane. If you want to know what to do with your honey, ask your mentor.

Check under the OMF if the hive has one, in case she ends up there - there'll be a cluster around her if so

If they initially settled on the front of another hive, how did they get into this box?

When did the swarm arrive? How long ago did the queen emerge from this cell?