So I was truly puzzled yesterday when I found one of my 3-frame nucs in a divided 10-frame box had a queen cell with jelly and a 1-2 day old larva in it. Allow me to explain the reason for my surprise: I created the 3-way box and place 1 frame of mostly capped brood and nurse bees, one frame of stores, and a frame of foundation in each. I though I had enough capped queen cells, but ended up 1 short, so the middle chamber sat queenless. On 2 July I went through the box and found my 2 virgin queens on the left and right sides, but nothing new in the middle. I had to travel for the weekend, but checked on 10 July and found 1 mated queen laying up a storm in the right partition, and the left queen probably hadn't made it back through the gauntlet of swallows that patrol my yard in the evenings; I also found a half dozen capped queen cells in the middle partition. 12 July found a new 1-2 day old virgin queen in the middle partition and a still queenless left partition (should have moved one of the queen cells from the middle partition, I know). Due to factors and lots of lame excuses, I managed to decapitate the new virigin queen. :doh: Well, on 15 July, I went and bought a few queens for the 2 queenless partitions and a couple other splits I needed to make, and when going into the middle partition on 16 July, I found 2 queen cells with jelly and one with a noticeable little "C" perched on top. Yesterday was overcast, 92 degrees with 90% humidity, so I was too sweaty to be sure, but I could swear I saw a small section of comb with a single egg in each below the queen cells. I have NO idea where these bees got eggs from. I spent a good 20 minutes going over each of the 3 frames, looking for a queen and another 5 minutes scouring the box- nothing... Now I've had that right partition with a queen for a couple of weeks, is it possible/plausible that workers are getting into the queen-right side and moving eggs to the middle? It doesn't make sense to me, but I'm really at a loss for a better explanation. My only other theory is that 2 queens hatched in the middle, but I managed to kill 1 before they could fight it out, the other went on a VERY fast mating flight, laid a few eggs and was out on another mating flight yesterday when I went through; however, why would they immediately start making new queens? Any other theories would be appreciated