> From:    randy oliver <[log in to unmask]>

> Or,  since the queen lays eggs in cells that are cleaned and prepared by
> workers, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there is a "ready to
> receive and egg" pheromone that the workers tag the cleaned cell with.

I remember one time I left an excluder between united boxes in the 
spring. This was before varroa, and I kept one drone frame in most 
hives year around. Needed drones for spreading the "right" genetics to 
my neighbour beeks, and also reduced burr comb when bees didn't feel 
the need to make drone cells everywhere.

There was an old Carnica queen in the bottom box, I probably wasn't 
sure if there was any virgin in the box I sat on top so left excluder 
there. The top box had a drone comb with honey, bottom box had only 
worker comb. When I got back to that yard next time the drone comb in 
top box was cleaned out. I took excluder away and went through the 
other hives in the yard. For some reason I had to go back to that 
hive, to get full honey frames for another hive or something.

What I found after maybe 15 minutes without excluder was the queen 
desperately laying in the drone frame in top box. She didn't look at 
me when I lifted out the frame and watched her. She just kept on 
laying eggs, cell by cell in that drone frame totally unaware of 
anything... Then I realized that workers can decide a lot about what 
the queen is doing. This was early in spring, and that drone frame was 
far away from her brood nest in bottom box.

--
P-O

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