Possible missing queen
So my most recent inspection found no eggs. The observations:
There was uncapped larva, on the smaller side.
First-year hive, 1yo queen. Three deep brood & two medium supers.
I had applied HopGuard four weeks ago and was removing the strips.
There were bees that look like they had exploded out the back with polleny guts.
I saw a hive beetle, but not in numbers bigger than I've observed in healthy hives.
No feeding since the last inspection.
I assume that I didn't squish her four weeks ago. It's possible the HopGuard stayed in too long, but I can't find any evidence that it's a problem, just ineffective. There were only a couple of the 'exploded' bees.
There were no queen cells, though I stopped my inspection before getting to the last few frames - I felt that leaving a few frames undisturbed might help them if they're trying to rear a new queen.
I've read that this time of year, laying can slow. Assuming that it's time to worry, should I let them try to rear a new queen, or is it too late for that? Should I just get a new queen ASAP - or is it too late for that?
If you have no eggs and no queen you are at risk for a laying worker. You have about 3 weeks before the workers start to lay drone eggs. You will see multiple eggs in the cells, a prime indicator. Laying workes can be difficult to correct.. If you have another hive take a frame of young milk brood and eggs from that hive and install in the queenless hive. Then hope they build a new queen cell and she successfully mates.