Hi Everyone,
Now I am sure others have also observed this as well but just because there is an egg in a queen cell does not mean it is a female egg.  Laying worker colonies will at times try to raise queens from eggs that are male and will develop into only drones.  I have see this several times so it does not appear to be rare.  We are making an assumption that eggs seen in queenless colonies or above an excluder have been moved by the bees but they could well be from laying workers and just because they are in queen cells does not mean that they are not drone eggs.

blane



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Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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