Drone brood in super.

[Matt1971]

I have been keeping bee's for about 2 years and have never had any brood in a super before, the super is the one directly above my brood box that has a queen excluder on, the only other thing that i have done in the last week was put another super on because they were starting to fill this super with honey very quickly. So will this cause any problems and how did they get in there?

 

[MonseigneurBienvenu]

From yesterday's bee experience, I am quite chuffed to be able to give an option: bees sometime move eggs around, apparently; so it could be a little of that. I'm sure others will present the other options (e.g. slim Queen) and some advice on how to check.

Best,
Ana

 

[Duchy]

Can you see your queen & how old is your queen? If your queen is failing you could have laying workers?

 

[susbees]

Look for queen in the supers and return her back down below the queen excluder. Either you let her in their by accident or she's not a great queen (small thorax) or there's a flaw in the queen excluder.

How much brood is in your brood box?

Regarding problems - you'll need to let the brood emerge and release the drones out of the box (or they'll die quickly) as soon as they can fly (so that's going to be around six weeks)...if your honey has OSR in it then that could give you a problem....but how many cells are you talking about?

 

[Polyanwood]

I wonder if the queen has enough room to lay?

 

[susbees]

I wonder if the queen has enough room to lay?

Part of the reason for my question...

 

[oliver90owner]

Part of the reason for my question...

Yep,things like how many, is the super drone sized cells (either drone foundation or drawn freely by the bees only for honey storage).

If your queen is failing you could have laying workers

Doubtful, but possible. Workers normally police laying worker eggs, failing queen or not.

Initially, need the whole picture before any more guesses are put up.

 

[user 6228]

Part of the reason for my question...

Yep,things like how many, is the super drone sized cells (either drone foundation or drawn freely by the bees only for honey storage).

If your queen is failing you could have laying workers

Doubtful, but possible. Workers normally police laying worker eggs, failing queen or not.

Initially, need the whole picture before any more guesses are put up.

yep more info needed. Even in my limited experience I have seen the odd drone cell even 3 or 4 in the super above an excluder while the rest of the hive continues on merrily

 

[Matt1971]

The queen looks ok, she is marked and last years queen, loads of brood in the brood box, loads of bee's in the brood box, there are about 10-20 drone brood in the super.

 

[Reentrant]

I have a similar problem, probably because in spring I united a colony that lost its queen over winter (and was raising only drone brood) with a strong queenright colony.

There's loads of worker brood and eggs in the brood box so the 1-year old queen is fine, but the laying worker(s) are infesting the supers.

How long do laying workers live - the normal 6 weeks or does laying extend their lives? Presumably they can get through a QX.