Weird looking queen cells - what are they doing?

[Parsonage Bees]

I must be getting withdrawal symptoms as I'm watching an Australian beekeeper doing inspections on YouTube.

What's happening here?

End of spring in Australia. A brood frame moved above the excluder 2 weeks previous to give them more space in brood nest. Still queen-right. Queen in bottom box under the excluder. They've produced QCs, capped them off and are now chewing the ends off. I thought if they wanted to destroy a cell they went in at the side.

. . . . Ben

 

[Sutty]

And I thought my bees were "runny"!
He doesn't exactly handle them gently even when he says he's going to, so that may be why.
Did he say he'd taken a split from this hive recently? I may have misheard, but maybe if so and he moved a brood frame up the bees on it experienced a big drop in brood and queen pheromones & so raised eqcs, perhaps now changing their minds.
Unless I was in a rush to make increase, knowing there was a Q and eggs in the lower chamber, and no QCs in the lower chamber, I'd have just taken down the QCs and checked in a few days.

 

[Sutty]

If a rival Q destroys a QC my understanding is that she stings through the side & the bees finish it off - & we see that.
I'm not sure how they take down other QCs they no longer need.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

As there are more than one of these QCs I'd have opened one to see how far the queen had developed. + 2 weeks since moving the frame I'm betting they were about to emerge.

 

[Sutty]

As there are more than one of these QCs I'd have opened one to see how far the queen had developed. + 2 weeks since moving the frame I'm betting they were about to emerge.

I did wonder that, though they looked a bit scrappier than the thinned-out ripe cells I've seen.
If he did want increase moving the old Q away, pulling a few Q's and destroying the rest could have been a better option. Avoiding a swarm with the first to emerge.

 

[Parsonage Bees]

Are the workers making it easy for the queens to emerge? . . . by chewing off the end of the cell.

Mine don't do that. Do they?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Are the workers making it easy for the queens to emerge? . . . by chewing off the end of the cell.

Mine don't do that. Do they?

I was just going to say that they are supposed to according to the literature. I’ve never observed it. But then I don’t look in my bees all day. When I have seen queens about to emerge the end of the cell is thinner. It looks darker because you can see the cocoon underneath