Moon queening

With the Star sorted as best I can, attention must now turn to the Moon and what's happening there. Last week, if you remember, I had given them eggs and expected them to rear a dozen queens or so from that.
But before I get to that, I managed to solve a somewhat sad mystery. Last inspection with Goulwenn the smoke from the smoker had suddenly started to smell rank - like long decayed beasties in the sunlight. The lovely thing is this stench has caught in my veil, so I smell it each time I put on the beesuit. Ugh! While preparing the smoker for today's Moon inspection, I saw what must be the cause for that awful smell.

The bees' own Pompeii

I don't think she's solely responsible (I probably emptied the others), but a few of these burnt alive can't smell good.

Having sorted out smoker issues, I opened up the Moon. Little had changed in the supers and there were very few frames completely sealed on both sides. The bees were very flighty and came out in strong numbers to see what the big blue thing was doing to their house. However, none stung and they seemed more curious than aggressive. I was surprised that there were still so many bees, as they have not had new brood for a few weeks now. As I had marked the frame with the eggs on it that I had put in, I did not have to look at all frames, but just work my way gently to that one.
I expected to see similar queen cell scapes that I had seen last time, but the bees seem to be more intelligent. They must know that raising more than one queen is of no use. Anyway, there was only one beautiful queen cell and a few messy attempts at something halfway between drone cell and queen cell. I removed these, just to be sure, and left only the one cell.

The queen cell, at the SE of the central brood patch.

If all goes well, a queen will hatch from that within the coming week. Should the weather hold, she will go on her mating flight and then return to the hive to start laying and rescue the colony from oblivion. Fingers crossed that this time nothing happens to the queen.
That all is not lost and miracles still can happen was proven by the fact that after the inspection the smoker was still burning and exhaling smoke as if it had only just been lit. Perhaps I am the better boy scout after all...!

Still smoking