Hello All, I was adding boxs to my bees that I srarted on April 6th of this year and noticed something. Out of the 25 hives that I added boxs and took a look inside , I saw a big difference in brood patterns. About 30% were solid and made me think about all the honey they will make.Then come the ones with cells that were void, about 100 or more on a frame of capped brood.The ones with the solid brood frames , had a higher population of workers.That is why we want good queens.The queens came from the same breeder and in fact from the same queen Mother. That could be a problem right there.But the drones have a function in this also. I have been raising a few queens myself.To get good queens you need to pay alot of attention to your starters and finishers. Now comes the question, what has the most effect on egg laying of a queen? I should not rule out a pathogen that could kill off some of the larva. Dave Green said something that kept going around in my head. Cull out the slow ones. The ones with holes are not more than 20% behind the ones with solid brood patterns.Maybe I just want perfection and when I see it I want it in all my hives. I thought that it was just a gene problem before and it may still be one? I would like to know what the strongest factor that drives egg production is? Best Regards Roy