Queen acting strange?

[power napper]

Just a few minutes ago I was watching the observation hive and witnessed the queen eating the wax cells so it could get further (head first) into the cells. There is larva and royal jelly at the bottom of these cells at the bottom of the top frame. which are very short in depth. Have never seen this before.
It appears as though the queen eating the royal jelly? The O H is full and no work for the queen, all capped brood and larva, honey, nectar etc. Any ideas?

[Michael Bush]

I've seen virgins do this. I've also seen a virgin queen trying (the workers pitched in and helped so I'm not sure how much of the job the queen did) to open up a capped drone cell with a pupae in it. When it was open she started sucking out food or the drones brains. smile.gif Not sure which be she was pretty voracious.

I haven't seen a laying queen do these kinds of things, but I wouldn't say it doesn't happen.

[power napper]

The queen was doing this without the assistance of any workers! I watched her do it to at least half a dozen cells. I used a magnifying glass to watch her chew the cell walls so she could get her body deeper into the cells.