Hello from Casper, Wy

I use free flying queenless starter-rearers for raising queen cells. They
consist of a feeder, a frame of honey, a newly sealed brood frame, a
grafting frame, a pollen frame, a older brood frame (mostly hatched) and
another honey frame. Initially, it is stocked with sealed brood and young
nurse bees from a support hive and batches of cells are grafted at 3 and
4 day intervals.

Once a week the rearer is reinforced with an additional frame of sealed
brood and nurse bees. The older frame of mostly hatched brood is removed
and the frame of brood closer to the feeder is moved to replace it. A new
frame of sealed brood from the support hive is placed closer to the
feeder. The pollen frame is refreshed with trapped pollen pellets and
sprayed with a light sugar syrup.

Initially I checked all frames for spurious queen cells and would cut any
I found. After several cycles I would check only the rotated frames and
ignored the two honey frames.
However, every year after about a month of grafting, I would loose a
batch or two of cells from one of the rearers due to an emerged virgin.
The location of the hatched queen cell was always on the back side of the
honey frame next to the feeder. A small area would be cleared of honey
and a queen cell located there. No other eggs or unsealed larva except
the grafted cells could be found in the rearer.

I now check the honey frames as well and find at least one rearer out of
16 total that wants to rear a queen cell on the back side of the honey
frame each year.

Laying worker(parthenogenesis)? I don't know, but would guess that the
bees moved one of my grafted larva to a less disturbed location of their
choosing.

Best Wishes
Dennis Murrell