Supercedure cells

 Today was the day I should have had my camera with me when Matt and I went into the hive #2.  The intent was to look around so Matt could see what goes on inside the hive and to place a drone frame to start varroa control.  

In the top box we saw lots of drone brood and, much to my surprise, we saw 5 supercedure cells on one of the frames.  I wished I had my camera.  Here is someone else's picture.  It looks very much like what we saw, except there were more queen cells.
When the queen is getting old and not as fecund or giving off enough pheromones, the workers make a new queen to supercede, or replace, the her with a new queen.  The difference between supercedure cells and swarm cells is their location.  This is a picture of swarm cells which are made at the bottom of the frame.

We did not spot the queen or eggs, but there was plenty of worker brood.  I will wait couple of weeks before looking for laying activity.