The Queen is Dead - Oh, Woe is Me

Today it is in the high 60s after about a week of extremely cold weather (for Atlanta) - lows in the teens and highs in the 40s. The bees are very active. There's a lot of carrying out the dead and a lot of bees in the leaves in front of the hives - dead or dying.

I took some pictures of the bees in front of the hives and came in to look at them on my computer. The first picture has a dead bee in it that looked long in body and suspiciously like the queen.

I hurried outside and picked up the leaf and brought it indoors - and I am so sad to discover that it is indeed the queen from Bermuda. There's no way on January 6 with no drones that the bees in this hive will make another queen. What am I going to do?

The bees are very active in this hive and are bringing in pollen. You'll also notice in the picture that the dead queen has no wings. Perhaps she has been dead for a while.

Well, first I am going to post on Beemaster and Beesource and see what they say and then I'm going to call the man I buy bees from and see what he suggests in terms of how to get a queen as early as possible.

Yours in panic,

Linda