So once again we lose good experienced advice with a sharp tongue? Number three?
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After much overnight thinking on the subject of hidden queen cells: First of all if the brood frames are that covered in bees, that a queen cell, if present can’t be seen during swarm season, a preventative swarm split would certainly be warranted anyway.
On the subject of shaking bees off frames in order to see if queen cells are present, I generally do gentle shakes, just enough to remove half of the bees. That makes the frame more visible to inspect.
We, as bee keepers must be able to & must “read the brood” during an inspection. Then take appropriate action, if needed.
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Kylie, This is a great post title “Not in the text books” it just about sums it up. Bees do all sorts of things that are unexpected and sometimes swarm without making any arrangements. I have seen queens swarm and found newly laid eggs when Ive looked in a hive the swarm has come from with no preparations for swarming. Some times its in the genetics of the queen, they emit some pheromone and off the bees go regardless ; especially in the right conditions. Had everything from two queens in a hive overwinter and one swarms leaving the other, seven swarms from one colony and it still was a productive triple, an old queen swarmed and couldn’t fly very well so ended up in the hive next door happily coexisting with the queen in residence, when I put her back in her original colony the virgin in that colony swarmed 10 minutes later. Bees are always unpredictable and they definitely don’t read books 
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Totally agree. Even if they read secret bee books, they don’t all read the same book. I have 2 hives about 5 feet apart. One lays consistently in the lower brood box (of 2 deeps), the other lays about 60% in the upper box and 40% in the lower box. So they are not even reading the same bee book! 
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