She's Oot.

Yesterday’s puzzle was resolved today, the queen cell that should have emerged first had disappeared without trace, the second (in the Blip) had been opened at the bottom indicating that the queen inside had successfully emerged, and the third was empty. It is always recommended that you rely on an open queen cell when selecting one to nurture as it’s always possible that a sealed one might be empty – something I, personally, have never seen before today. There was a time that, if I saw a queen cell in a hive, in the fullness of time, there would be a queen laying eggs; these days, nothing is guaranteed. I did see a queen running around, very black (surprising - but good) but very small (unsurprising, these days, and not so good); once she’s mated and has come into lay she will be bigger but not still on the small side. However, experience says that she will be perfectly satisfactory and be able to take the colony through the winter, but will be replaced by the bees in the spring. The one question that remains is, what happened to the other one? I’ll never know for sure but, if there are two, I expect the larger of the two will kill the smaller; I hope that I end up with a black one.