Surprise! There's a New Queen in the Hive!

What can I say? I've been in both hives enough to feel like I know what is going on, but I was caught completely off guard on finding a new queen in the OV hive today. Here are the facts:

• 5-10-2011 Only looked through the hole of the inner cover to see if the bees were starting to draw out comb in the honey super. Lots of activity up there.
  
  
  5-8-2011 Saw queen in top box and good brood meaning eggs, larvae and pupae. Removed excluder and added honey super.
  
  4-30-2011 Left hive alone for last 2 weeks. Saw queen and good brood. Did find multiple queen cups along the bottom of the frame and a SWARM CELL THAT WAS OPENED ALONG THE SIDE. Wasn't too concerned as the Russians have been making and destroying swarm cells for the past month.
  
  4-19-2011 Saw queen and good brood. No swarm cells present.
  
  4-17-2011 Saw queen but didn't notice any eggs. Was only doing a quick inspection and once I spotted the queen, I closed up the hive. It was later that I realized I didn't notice any eggs.

A new queen certainly did emerge from the swarm cell sometime shortly before 4-30-2011. Here she is in all her golden glory!

But I do not believe that the hive swarmed. There are a lot of bees in the hive - it is noticeably noisier - and there were so many signs that the hive is queen right. She was easy to locate as the bees showed me exactly where she was once I was down in the bottom box.

So, what happened to my lovely dark Russian queen? I did not inspect every single frame but the bees gave me no indication of a queen being elsewhere in the hive.

This leaves me with some questions, first of which is, did they swarm? Hard to say as the population of the hive leads me to believe not.

I spotted the original queen every time I inspected the hive, including after I found the opened swarm cell. Would the hive create a new queen while the old queen was present and not swarm?

Hmmmm... lots to think about tonight. I will certainly miss my lovely, dark Russian queen!