I have a 4 frame medium nuc that had a fall queen installed last October. It had a queen a month ago when I checked. Now it has lots of drone brood layed in workers size cells so that they stick up above the comb. There seems to be about 10% of the capped brood is worker sized. There are only single eggs in the bottoms of the cells. The bees seem pretty quiet on the combs, that is, they don't act queenless. They have stored pollen and capped honey/syrup. I have looked 3 times for the queen, but have not had any luck. I would think she would be fairly easy to find in such a small nuc. I could combine it with another 4 frame nuc or just shake the bees out and give the combs to another nuc. I have seen colonies with laying workers before, but the drone brood seemed more randomly spaced on the combs, and there would be multiple eggs on the side walls of some cells, and they act queenless. What do you think?
Ben