Perhaps she had been there all the time?
New queens often lay multiple eggs till they get the hang of it.
New queens can lay quite a few drones before they get the hang of it too.
What an interesting scenario
I’m glad the bees got together without fighting.
Ask your friend to give you an update on whether she goes on to lay
I’d be mighty interested too
Thanks Dee…I agree it is an interesting scenario.
I really don’t think she was there all the time (but I have no other explanation!) because I had a queen excluder below the Flow Box and a medium super on top of the Flow. Both had a goodly number of drone cells created (both sealed and open larva). How could she have gotten past the queen excluder?
I forgot to mention, however, in my “thesis” that when we found the two queens, this one did NOT seem to have been laying. No brood observable. So, was she virgin? She was a good size and producing pheromone (based upon the behavior of the bees captured with her…all facing toward her).
Yes, my friend said he would let me know in a couple weeks about how she is behaving.
I had a laying worker issue in my Flow hybrid after a newish queen absconded; I ended up using a needle-nose tweezers to pull out individual larvae (both capped and open). Then I used a hose to spray it clean. A bit grisly, but worth the effort to not lose any valuable nectar flow time.