>My understanding is that  supercedure cell contains an egg that was laid to
be a  worker and was  then repurposed to be a queen.

Disagree I'm afraid.  Only this week we had a hive with just one large,
perfectly formed queen cell high up on the edge of the comb.  Certainly not
developed from a worker cell.  We get these with what we like to call a
'true' supersedure, i.e. when the queen is coming to the end of her useful
life - perhaps after 2, 3,4 or more years, and the colony decides to replace
her.  The cell hatches, the virgin mates and then often lives for the rest
of the year with the existing queen who usually disappears during the
following winter, although we had one that lived until the following May.

Those 'true supersedure' cells and the queens they produce are very
desirable in my estimation and I usually put them into a nuc - hoping that
another will be produced.

So there are perhaps two types of supersedure - one that happens early in a
queen's life where the colony is not happy with her for some reason, and the
other where the queen lives out a full life and is then replaced without
swarming.

Best wishes

Peter 
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W

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