Would the queen lay eggs in foundation that has not yet been fully drawn out?
I inspected my 1st hive today and took pictures, when I examined them when I got back, I saw this..
(http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/6/img2272dy0.jpg) (http://imageshack.us)
Are those eggs in the unfinished comb?
Sure looks like eggs to me. I have read that some times the queen will lay before the cell is finished. Looks like you captured it in the picture!
Yep. Definitely eggs. Nice picture. And yes, the queen will lay in foundation that is not fully built to our standards. Natural comb is much different than our comb that we start for them.
Micheal bush has a page on natural cell size i believe.
Jake
yes a queen will lay in unfinished cells, but by the time the egg hatches and is capped the cells will be complete, this happens all the time with packages in new hives.
Queens from Swarms and Packages will often lay eggs in unfinished comb. Like TwT stated, they will have the comb drawn and capped by the time it's needed. I like to see that behavior, it means that swarm is serious about getting down to business. A swarm that won't do that delays rebuilding itself, sometimes to the point that it can't survive the winter as the die off of the older bees reduces the numbers too much before there is enough workers hatched and matured enough to take up the slack.