Thanks for posting this thread. I don’t mean to hijack it, but I have some cattleya sheaths that have seemingly inflated, but after weeks and weeks have not opened, and I don’t see a sign of a flower bud in there

Sometimes there are empty sheaths while, in certain species/hybrids, first comes the sheath. They seem empty but with time, if that's the case, the buds will start to grow inside.

Some catts can take much more than just 'weeks and weeks' of no activity in the sheath before something happens.

Anticipation can be stressful. So the best approach is to just let the plant do its own thing. Instead of placing emphasis on the sheath, place emphasis on spike. This just means - ignore sheath. Only begin to get excited when a spike develops from a plant.

It's the good old "I'll believe it when I see it".