Hello All:
 
        Another day, another never-seen-before situation, so another
        question.
 
        Yesterday I did a *complete* inspection of one of my hives.
        The purpose was to determine the conditions of the brood
        nest and to rotate 1st and 3rd deeps if necessary. I
        inspected each frame in each of the 3 deep hive. I found that
        the brood nest had indeed moved up mostly into the 3rd deep.
        The 2nd or middle deep also had older and emerging brood and
        the 1st or bottom deep had only a small patch of brood, mostly
        honey and some pollen. I rotated 1 & 3 so that the younger brood
        would be on the bottom.
 
        I was suprised to find one frame in the 3rd deep to have 9-10
        queen cells on the face of the comb, about in the middle of the frame.
        Each side of the frame had about the same number of cells, making
        for a total of about 18 cells! I also found a similar frame in the
        bottom deep, but not as many cells. All of these cells were closed.
        They appeared to be somewhat smaller then what I have seen for
        supercedure cells in the past. I opened up a few  and found larvae
        that I judge to be fairly immature.
 
        What is going on here? I'm worried.
 
        I read the thread about testing for a queenless hive and the reference
        to emergency Q cells. Is this what is happening?
 
        I must add that there were 3-4 frames of newly sealed brood in an
        excellent pattern next to the frame holding these cells. I must confess
        that I was distracted by the Q cells and do not remember looking for or
        seeing any uncapped larvae or eggs.
 
        Thanks to everyone for their help in advance. I know that I should
        be talking with my State inspector about these things but we only
        have one guy for the whole state, he's hard to reach on the phone
        and even harder to get to come over to do an inspection. His latest
        promise is the week of 7/8 or the week following...unfortunately
        I have heard this promise before.
 
 
Tim Peters, Kirby VT
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KirBee Apiary, Bear Bait Honey
I rather be flying!