Hi Guys

I'll share my little experience.

When I produced queens, I ran free flying queenless starter finishers. They were setup as follows:

- solid frame of capped honey
- sealed brood frame
- pollen/nectar frame
- grafting frame
- pollen/nectar frame
- sealed brood frame
- division board feeder

For the first couple of cycles, I'd always check every frame for spurious queen cells. But after that I'd seldom check the capped honey frame. It was essentially left alone.

But after running a half dozen grafting cycles, I'd loose a starter-finisher or two to a spurious virgin queen. Where would I find the queen cell? It would be located on the back side of the honey frame next to the hive body wall!

The bees would clean out a 2 inch diameter area and raise a queen cell there. It was surrounded by sealed honey and no other brood/eggs would be there. Just the single queen cell.

I surmised the bees got tired of my constant meddling and became frustrated in their attempts to hatch a queen. They found the least disturbed area on the back side of that sealed honey frame. And attempted to raise a queen there. 

Did they lay the egg or move it? I suspect they moved it because no other spurious cells or eggs were found. And unlike a hive with a laying worker, the hive stayed organized.

Regards - Dennis

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