odd circumstances in garden colony

[Cuckmere couple]

hi all....i have 4 colonies and a nuc in the garden. 3 are demareed and doing v well.

1 has been slow to build up in comparison although now has 6 frames of brood

the queen was marked as mated on 1/8/2020

last week everything appeared normal but this week, there were 2-3 eggs in some cells (on the bottom of the cells) and 1 charged QC, didn't see the q but didn't look hard

I doubt a queen can come to harm within a week and a laying worker start up and odd that there weren't more q cells

will leave and see what happens but any thoughts welcome

 

[enrico]

Possibly two queens have been running together. The new one has just come into lay. The old one was not good hence the slow build up. The new one is laying more than one egg in a cell which is not unusual. Eventually the old one will get dispatched. The queen cells is a just in case cell! It will get ripped down if the new queen is good. That is my thoughts!

 

[Cuckmere couple]

thanks Enrico...helpful suggestions...i will wait and check that the cells become worker rather than drone cells to exclude a LW