How did they do this?

[StephenT]

Inspected one of our hives yesterday that was the AS part of a Snelgrove 2 modified on 18/4. We didn’t move the Queen back to it but left one sealed QC on 25/4 that should have emerged about 2 weeks ago. No sign of any eggs or brood in the hive whatsoever yesterday but noticed the sealed QC in the attached picture at the bottom of the first super above the QE. The unsealed one was empty. Could they have nicked an egg from another hive and tried to make a queen out of it? Egg moved up when they were making EQCs and queen never emerged? What obvious explanation are we missing?

 

[masterBK]

Several possibilities. Sealed cells are sometimes empty. Some eggs can take ages to hatch. Egg from laying worker (they exist even in queen right colonies).

 

[StephenT]

They’ve had no queen since 18/4 when a couple of frames of brood, including eggs, was put in from the parent hive.

 

[user 819]

Likely a worker trapped inside.

 

[masterBK]

Yes, I forgot that one but not in this case as the end of the cell is not brown (ie queen emerged , worker goes in, other workers stick the end flap back trappiong it inside). Why not open the cell and have a look to solve the riddle

 

[StephenT]

Yes, I forgot that one but not in this case as the end of the cell is not brown (ie queen emerged , worker goes in, other workers stick the end flap back trappiong it inside). Why not open the cell and have a look to solve the riddle

I guess I’m hoping by some miracle that there’s a queen in there although I cannot possibly see how there could be. Need to leave for another week or so in any case as the EQC in the brood box would only have emerged 2 weeks ago and the weather's been very mixed since.
Why would they build QCs in the super above a QE though?