Drone or Queen Cells?

During today’s hive inspection, I began by checking the lower brood box to assess how they were doing there.  I didn’t spend much time inspecting it.  It didn’t appear that they built any new comb on the outside frames yet so I coated them better than I have before with sugar water again.  I briefly glanced at the inner frames, which appeared to be in good shape so I left them alone.

Upon inspecting the top brood box I found some potential cross combing.  It was barely hanging on the frame and was attached to the frame next to it so I had to remove it to prevent it from falling to the lower box.  I was uncertain about how to reattach it to a plastic frame. If I had been using foundationless frames, I could have secured it with rubber bands. I plan to look into methods for reattaching it with foundation for future reference.

In the third frame, I noticed approximately five sizable cells that could either be drone cells or the beginnings of queen cells.  I wasn’t sure at the time so I just took a picture to look into it.  Apparently I’ll need to inspect inside them to determine if they are indeed queen cells starting to form. If I observe any signs of these, I’ll need to monitor for potential swarming behavior. there are numerous eggs present on the same frame, indicating that the queen has been alive for at least several days.

I’ll spend sometime this week researching the cells and what some potential scenarios I need to lookout for with the drone/queen cells.  I’d also like to move any all honey frames to the ends if they still haven’t built anything on the outer frames hoping to encourage building on the empty frames. I’m also optimistic that by increasing the sugar water spray during todays visit, it will stimulate their activity enough to avoid having to rearrange any frames.