> To observe an abnormal event and then to attempt to extrapolate normal behavior from it is not likely to lead to advanced knowledge, IMHO.

Of course, but to what do we compare it? What is normal behavior in swarming? Researchers at Cornell wrote: 

1) that neither swarming nor supersedure necessarily follows maturation of queen cells; 
2) that one or more queens may be reared and rejected before swarming or supersedure occurs, if it does at all.

Gary, N. E., & Morse, R. A. (1962). The events following queen cell construction in honeybee colonies. Journal of Apicultural Research, 1(1), 3-5.

Later, they write:

The rearing of queens under the swarming and supercedure impulses is similar in many ways, and one may lead to the other (see discussion by Ribbands 1953). Somehow the bees in the colony are able to differentiate between queens that are about to swarm and those that are to be superceded, and apparently their reaction to them is different.

Morse, R. A., Dyce, E. J., & Young, R. G. (1966). Weight changes by the queen honey bee during swarming. Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 59(4), 772-774.

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