Hi Everyone,
Hope all is well.  Boy do I have a couple of questions-
Last fall I combined 2 very light hives with no expectations of result
surviving the winter.  This spring, how, I don't know, the hive was still
alive, though not the population was very low.  I fed with the intention of
adding some brood to boost the hive.  When the weather finally warmed enough
to examine the hive, there was no queen and the hive was roaring so I just
let it alone as requeening would not do much good with so few bees.  With
the intention of splitting the other hive in the I have in my back yard, I
went in to clean out the equipment of the small hive that by now I thought
had died out.  I had seen no bees flying for several days.  When I opened
it there were still bees and no roaring.  I started removing frames and low
and behold there was a queen cell.  I have NO idea where the egg came from.
Worse than that, I damaged the cell when I removed the adjacent frame.  When
I returned all back to the hive, I replace the frames where they were,
carefully putting the broken parts of the cell back together.  Will the bees
mend this cell  and save the queen?  Also, where did the egg come from?  I
suppose I could have missed eggs from the first inspection, but there was NO
other brood and there were so few bees, I am sure I would have seen her.

Really strange!

Coleene