Today I checked on the queen I installed 5 days ago. Oops! I was surprised to find the frames full of larvae and capped brood. Since it takes at least 9 days to develop capped brood, it couldn't have been the new queen that I introduced who laid these eggs.
Two options, I suppose. Maybe one of the queens that the hive made (I saw many capped queen cells several weeks ago - evidentially a supercedure) mated and returned to lay. Or, maybe workers laid the eggs. I don't know which is more likely. I will open the hive the next time I can, next Wednesday morning, and see if I can see signs of worker laying, including multiple eggs per cell, eggs on the wall of cells, two or more large per cell, uneven larva patterns in cells, uneven laying pattern, high frequency of drones. At my brief observation this morning, the laying pattern looked very even and consistant. I hope it's a queen laying as it sounds difficult to remove laying workers.
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