strange goings on in hive

[Kathyp]

i don't know if this is a question of spewing of my frustrated thinking.  any input is welcome!!

i had 2 hives go queenless late fall.  one ended up being the laying worker hive that i shook out.  the other i thought i had caught in time and had given 3 frames of brood over the course of a month.  with the 3rd frame, they made queen cells and so i thought they were ok.  then the queen cells didn't open on time, and some of them didn't look so good.  in the mean time, i found scattered drone cells and figured i probably had another laying worker hive.  i decided to leave them alone until i got back from the beach.

today i checked them and found a queen...however...i found her near the top of the hive with very few attendants.  she ran so fast i wasn't convinced that it was a queen.  i dug through the hive still finding plenty of drone cells and found her on a frame full of bees acting as she should.  i didn't see eggs or larvae, but i can't see eggs most of the time anyway. 

the hives behavior is much better.  they had been so nasty that i hated getting into them.  i am thinking that i missed a queen cell somewhere and she's pretty new.  just mated perhaps and just started laying.  my plan is to leave them alone for another week or so and check again.  i have never had a drone laying queen.  do the frames look the same as with laying workers??

she looks like the black queen that i took the donor frames from, so i am hoping shes new and from that hive.

[dragonfly]

no capped cells that look like worker cells?

[Kathyp]

nope.  only drone.  that's why i thought i was going to have to shake them out.  now that i found a queen, i figure i'd better wait  :-)

[dragonfly]

Sounds like a good idea. :)
Keep us posted.

[Brian D. Bray]

A Runny queen usually suggests an unmated virgin or at least a queen that hasn't started laying yet.  I'd wait a week or 2 and see.

[Kathyp]

that's kind of what i was thinking.  the drone cells are what's got me worried i guess.  there are tons of them shotgunned through the hive.  maybe they made a queen in spite of laying workers?  or ??