Supersede Maybe?

[brooksbeefarm]

Worked a outyard yesterday and found a hive that had 3 supersede cells (in the middle of it) in the top med. super and two frames in the bottom deep with one queen cell each,( on the bottom of the frames) one was capped the other was still open on the end, but had larva in it. The hive was booming, so i took the two deep frames along with 4 frames of brood and enough  bees to make two nuces. Replaced the frames i took with drawn comb frames, put a queenexcluder on, and added two med. supers of drawn comb. With the two queen cells in the bottom deep made me wonder if they had something else in mind instead of superseding. Jack

[Bakersdozen]

Interesting situation.  I am curious to hear what the "seasoned" beeks will have to say.

[Woody Roberts]

I went down and checked the Sparta hives this week. My buddy's hive had one supersedure cell 3/4 of the way up the frame. This was a single deep we started last fall. I put some empty foundationless frames in the bottom box and added a box on top.
This young queen has done really good. Eggs, brood everywhere. I don't know why they would supersede but I've seen it before. Perhaps she doesn't smell strong enough for them.
Several generations ago when my bees still carried a lot of Russian it was common to have a queen cell most of the time. They would tear it down before it hatched and start a new one.
I wonder if this is not a genetic throwback.

I've never been able to get a queen properly mated here at home this early in the season. It might be different in an area with a higher ratio of hives per sq mi.

Before I got bees if I saw a honeybee in the yard I called the family to come look at it. Not joking here.
The hives at Sparta were about three weeks behind my hives at home with the start of buildup especially drone buildup. I had full frames of capped drone brood here when I had full frames of drone eggs down there.
Plant life seemed to be behind also.

Unless forced to I've always believed they won't build a queen unless they think she can get mated.

[Perry]

My bet would be supercedure Jack. Only 5 queen cells, some of them on the face of the comb. The action you took is good too.

[brooksbeefarm]

Like Woody? i don't know why they are superseding there queen unless she's not there ? This is a double deep with a med. super on top (with the 3 supersede cells in the middle of a med. frame) the queen had brood in all 3 boxes, with a good tight brood pattern? I looked for her and was going to put her in a nuc, but couldn't find her. I had the hive broke apart between rains and pulled every frame looking for her, and needless to say they wasn't happy I seen fresh larva, there might have been eggs? but the old eyes don't work like they use to , i'm thinking she's still in there. Well it's starting to rain and the winds blowing hard, the weather people say were in for some bad storms tonight. Jack