An interesting but inconclusive observation today.  So I picked up some
swarms (with permission) a stupid height off the ground next to a holding
yard.  The pile of bees covered 10 or 15 feet of trunk space in a solid
mat.  Over two days I filled 5 deeps with a large quantity of bees.  I
checked them a week later and looks like I was 1 for 4 on queens (I made
one double deep and 3 singles out of the mess), so picked up some queens
from a buddy of mine and did the whole squish the cage between 2 frames
slow release with candy plug.  Invariably within a couple days the bees
were drawing comb off the suspended cage.  All 3 queens were released and
trotting around the combs 4 days later, no sign of other queens, 0 brood.
What was puzzeling is that the comb hanging from one cage was full of eggs,
but they were placed haphazardly like you would see in a drone layer.  Some
with multiple and often at odd angles.  I've read that new queens will do
that somewhere but had never whitnessed it, it just made me think of the
description in Pete's article of worker placed eggs and the confined
queen.  Obviously inconclusive since the queen was already released but it
still intrigued me.  Awfully tempting to set up an observation hive with a
couple combs, but just too dang busy, I had better finish the floor in the
canning kitchen before I try to propose another bee project to my other
half.

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