> I for one believe even queenright colonies often have a few laying workers, >one of which here put an egg in that queen cell found that developed to the >point found, then 'aborted', if you will...<snip> > Is it possible that the queen could have managed to get an >egg up into this cell WITHOUT herself having gone thru the excluder? > I have never bought the idea of a worker carrying an egg or larva from one >place to another (hive to hive, or one part of the hive to another)...<snip> tend to agree with your hypothesis, although have never observed it myself but recall reading a study on thelytoky (in bee science) which similarly described the aborted laying-worker q-cells...can't rule out the worker-transported egg theory, though, as can recall reading about it (in b.c.hivenotes, perhaps) being captured on video in an observation hive at simon fraser university's beelab, also a few years ago or so... maybee someone at apimondia in vancouver will present something on this? ________________________________________________________________ Get secure free e-mail that you don't need Web access to use from Juno, the world's second largest online service. Download your free software at http://www.juno.com/getit.b.html.