Bee- and housekeeping

Main purpose of today's inspection was to ascertain whether there was a mated queen, a waiting-to-be-mated queen or complete chaos in the Star hive. I also thought a bit of housekeeping would not go amiss to try and remove as many traces of the collapse as possible.
Before doing any of that, I got some nice new varroa boards, which I battleshipped to better be able to count the mites when they drop. The old wooden boards warped too easily and much; these plastic ones will hopefully last longer.

Ready to play mite battleships

The Star is still fairly quiet. Having looked at the bees again, I don't think a swarm left as there are still many bees - just not as many as if the queen were still in lay. I was pleased to note quite a number of drones in the hive, lending strength to The Captain's theory that the workers got nervous, threw a hissy and their stingers around and got a few drones. Makes me think of Hall&Oates: Watch out boy, she'll chew (or sting) you up, she's a bee-eater (well, not really, as they do exist and are quite different, being birds for starters).
Anyway, no eggs, no larvae, plenty of stores. Couldn't see the queen, but suspect she's around as the colony was calm and collected. Will continue monitoring it closely, though.
We removed one whole super full of frames where the foundation had been damaged beyond repair. Should probably have done that earlier. Also checked super full of capped honey and the bees have obviously done their housekeeping, too, as all combs are in pristine condition again; no trace of squashed bees. Bees are so hygienic; wish I had one as a housekeeper at my place!
On some of the damaged frames we removed there was still some capped honey, so we allowed ourselves a small treat after the beekeeping was done.

The benefits of beekeeping

Also put a wasp trap out, as quite a few of these horrible flying menaces were around.