About 20 years ago my father in law and me were bussy with  colonies during
quite a heavy honey flow from Robinia pseudoacacia. Colonies were of
maximum strenght having all available frames of propper quality didtributed
in hives. Than my father took even the rest of the  combs which were dark,
old and intended for melting, and put supers with them on tops of some
colonies to allow them to store more honey. The combs were at least one
season out of hives. When checking colonies after a week or so he found
four queen cells on one of those combs. There was a gueen excluder on the
brood nest and no other brood cells in about three honey supers bellow the
top super. We guessed then, bees had to move eggs from the brood nest to
raise queens in this part of hive far from the source of the queen
substance ...
 
And the other edification from the story: My father had an average of 13 kg
per hive more in comparison to me just as a result of giving bees more space
to store nectar.
 
Best regards,
Vladimir Ptacek
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Fac. Sci., Dept. Anim. Physiol.       E.mail: [log in to unmask]
Masaryk University                    phone:  .42/5/41129 562
611 37 Brno, Czech Republic           fax:    .42/5/41211 214