On Tue, 28 May 1996, Vladimir Ptacek wrote: > season out of hives. When checking colonies after a week or so he found > four queen cells on one of those combs. There was a gueen excluder on the > brood nest and no other brood cells in about three honey supers bellow the > top super. We guessed then, bees had to move eggs from the brood nest to > raise queens in this part of hive far from the source of the queen > substance ... Hm, I've had brood above the QX in one colony this year and last. I only proved drones as they were trapped, and it was mostly drone foundation so I wondered if I had a laying worker in addition to the queen. Now I wonder if they might have been moving eggs. There was some apparently used worker foundation, but no real evidence when I looked. I shall try to investigate further. Of course, it's also possible the queen could actually get through the QX somewhere -- they're not perfect. This also makes me wonder if a 'Jumbo' hive is still too small for my bees, even in the UK. Regards, -- Gordon Scott [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] (work) The Basingstoke Beekeeper (newsletter) [log in to unmask] <A HREF="http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/apis">Embryo Home Page</A> Beekeeper; Kendo 3rd Dan; Sometime sailor. Hampshire, England.