Curious synchronous code

[Dave Brosius]

In QueryStatImpl.java

    public void setSlowQueriesQueueSize(int size) {
        synchronized (*queries*) {
            this.queueSize = size;
            this.*queries* = new 
PriorityQueue<QueryStatDto>(this.queueSize + 1,
                    comparator);
        }
    }

this seems really odd to me, code is synchronizing on the old value of a 
field, to update it to a new value. Is this intended?