Queen cell on a drone frame?

[IndianaBrown]

While working my stong hive this weekend I found a queen cell on a green plastic drone frame. There was a larva and some royal jelly in it. It was towards the bottom of the frame, but not hanging off of the bottom at all. This weekend I was transferring the whole hive from 2 standard deeps to a 22 frame deep 'combo box' so I took a few seconds to check every frame. I did not see any other queen cells, just some cups from earlier in the spring.

I am reasonably sure that I managed to keep ahead of them and kept them from swarming. I made sure they had enough space, and I pulled a few frames when I saw lots of 'idle' bees. I never saw any evidence of backfilling or any other queen cells larger than the cups. There has been a good amount of brood every time I checked the hive this year (every 7 to 14 days.)

They are getting a bit crowded again, but with a flow just starting I don't think that this is a bad thing. I put on 2 medium supers about 2 weeks ago and 2 more with undrawn frames this weekend.

So... did the queen lay a worker egg on a drone frame? Are they thinking about swarming? Is this a 'normal' superscedure? Or... are the bees confused and trying to superscede the queen with drone?  :?

Since it was on a drone frame I went ahead and put it back in for now. Next week I may pull it and put it in a nuc box to see what happens. Any other ideas?

[Michael Bush]

>So... did the queen lay a worker egg on a drone frame?

Probably.

> Are they thinking about swarming?

If that's the only cell, probably not.

> Is this a 'normal' superscedure?

I haven't seen a hive swarm and only build one swarm cell.

> Or... are the bees confused and trying to superscede the queen with drone?

The only time I've seen that is with a drone layer or laying workers.  Then I don't think it's confusion, it's desperation.

"It is not surprising, therefore, that such cells are constructed in hives governed by queens laying the eggs of males only. It is no longer extraordinary that these queens deposit in the royal cells, eggs of the only species they can lay, for in general their instinct seems affected. But what I cannot comprehend is, why the bees take exactly the same care of the male eggs deposited in royal cells, as of those that should become queens. They provide them more plentifully with food, they build up the cells as if containing a royal worm; in a word, they labour with such regularity that we have frequently been deceived. More than once, in the firm persuasion of finding royal nymphs, we have opened the cells after they were sealed, yet the nymph of a drone always appeared. Here the instinct of the workers seemed defective. In the natural state, they can accurately distinguish the male worms from those of common bees, as they never fail giving a particular covering to the cells containing the former. Why then can they no longer distinguish the worms of drones, when deposited in the royal cell? The fact deserves much attention. I am convinced that to investigate the instinct of animals, we must carefully observe where it appears to err." --François Huber 21 August 1791

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#letter3