>I also have never noticed eggs in those cups when colonies are rearing
emergency cells, but I've also never methodically looked.  I now have
frames of eggs and young larvae prepared (by excluding a laying queen to a
single frame), and plan to start my first testing today or tomorrow.

I had an opportunity so I started today. I came across a drone laying queen in a colony with no open brood and no eggs- just some older capped drone cells in patches on various frames. After I pinched the queen, I marked an empty frame that contained a single queen cup and placed it in the colony. I then dropped in a frame that had eggs and day-old larva making sure the open brood and eggs were facing the queen cup. A bee would only have to pick up the egg or larva and turn around to place it in the cup- I made it easy.  I'll keep checking to see what happens.  What I expect is that they will draw emergency cells on the frame with the eggs, but this will be my first time looking any further to see if they also moved eggs or larva around. 

Most fun I've had in the yard this spring.


Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT. 

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