Squatters

Another big surprise from the bees.  One of my splits from the spring ended up with a drone-laying queen.  After giving them the benefit of the doubt for a few weeks, 19 days ago I shook them out in the meadow about 50m away, expecting that the flyers would return to the hive stand and charm their way into the adjacent hive.  By next morning all the bees had gone from the meadow and I noticed a group on the stand where their hive had been.  It gradually disappeared and I thought no more about it.

This morning I came to change the floor and put in slatted rack on the next-door hive because I had noticed a lot of burr comb on the floor.  When I turned the floor over I found five combs underneath, hanging from the mesh of the floor and covered in bees.  After sorting the new floor I shook the bees from the wild comb into the hive but then realised that the comb contained brood as well as nectar and pollen!  As far as I could see it was all drone brood.  The combs were pretty bashed up by this stage but this is what they looked like.

My first thought had been that the bees underneath were all part of the colony in the hive but now I don't know what has produced the drone brood underneath.  Could it be that the drone-laying queen returned with the flyers and set up camp under the next door hive?  Or are there now (or were there all along?) laying workers?  I am a bit concerned I may have shaken a drone-laying queen into the hive along with all the bees from the wild comb but there is nothing I can do about that now.

I didn't have a camera with me at the hive today but did take a picture of the drone brood a few weeks ago.  I never saw the (presumed) drone-laying queen but it was difficult with so many drones in the hive.  There weren't multiple eggs in cells and the brood extended over several frames so I thought then that laying workers was an unlikely diagnosis.

I am not sure how to work this all out.  Any comments will be welcome.