Drone layer

[Baggyone]

Thanks to the lovely weather I sat down and looked at the comings and goings on Monday and lo and behold in one hive I saw drones coming and going. February I thinks! Not ruddy likely, so decided to get the hive tool out and have a look as I suspected last year that the colony was doing a very late supercedure.

Well I think I was right and its all drone brood so am going to bump her maj off and unite whilst the weathers nice. There is plenty of stores in the hive so going to join it with a hive which is really low.

As I will do it with the newspaper and queen ex method, How long should I keep the qx on or could I just leave it so making sure queen stays low. Worried about queen getting split from a cluster.

Baggy

 

[Poly Hive]

If I were doing it I would not be using a Q ex. for the very reason you cite you are worried about.

PH

 

[VEG]

If its full of drones not much use uniting

 

[susbees]

If its full of drones not much use uniting

Good point - all they'll do is guzzle the stores on the unite. They won't thank you for it!

 

[Poly Hive]

The OP mentions drone brood but did not say the box was full of drones from which I am (assuming) that there are still a reasonable number of over wintered workers to make use of.

However no doubt they will be along to tell us what the state of play is.

PH

 

[Baggyone]

PH is right, plenty of winter bees to use and its not packed with drones as yet. Leaving the colony for a couple of weeks would probably make it useless but right now it can be of greater use for another colony.

Baggy

 

[VEG]

Ahh you didnt mention there were worker bees there as well.

 

[oliver90owner]

Not united like this following, very early in the season but on occasions I have banged the top lot on a travel screen for a day, then removed it. Alternative mnight be to sugar dust, or smelly spray, them and then run the bees in. One or three fall out a bit, but found it worked OK, and you can watch for any second queen that some posters think might be there (fairly unlikely if there is only drone brood, I would have thought and I would only suspect it if there were obvious separate patches of drone and worker brood). I don't like the paper unite, just in case they get cold and cluster, so think up an alternative that suits me.

RAB

 

[drstitson]

if you do actually unite the boxes i'd remove any brood from top box as don't want to waste energy on that. would then dummy down.

BUT since you'd be shaking bees anyway - why not do as rab suggests in first place. just choose a warm day.

 

[Finman]

.
Drone layer after winter

- the queen off
- drone brood off, let the birds pick brood off from combs (= mite off)
- keep them queenless 24 hours and then just unite to another hive.

routine job. Nothing odd in that.

 

[Beeline]

Well I think I was right and its all drone brood..

This is all assuming Baggyone has a queen to terminate. Maybe a DLW? What happens when that is thrown into the mix.

 

[oliver90owner]

Maybe a DLW? What happens when that is thrown into the mix.

I thought that had been answered recently, from post #17, (in reply to your queenless problem?) from this thread:

http://beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=15899&page=2

where I said: Now, if the queen is not there, it is a different scenario, and laying workers would be an obvious problem, and I would not try to unite.

 

[Beeline]

RAB - on reviewing my post my real question was not clear.

What happens when a DLW is added to a Q+ hive? Do both layers co-exist? I have read before that if a worker does lay eggs in a Q+ hive the guards are quick to find these eggs and dispose of them and the guilty party.

I am interested because yes, it does apply to my current situation.

 

[Finman]

.
Worker layer makes several eggs into one cell.

 

[tidymeup]

I have just done the very same, notices drones checked inside and removed the dud queen and united.

Just need a good day to get them into one box.

 

[Black Comb]

RAB - on reviewing my post my real question was not clear.

What happens when a DLW is added to a Q+ hive? Do both layers co-exist? I have read before that if a worker does lay eggs in a Q+ hive the guards are quick to find these eggs and dispose of them and the guilty party.

I am interested because yes, it does apply to my current situation.

I would think that there is a risk that the DLW's will kill the queen, but I've never done it so can't be certain.

 

[Poly Hive]

I suspect this thread is now theoretical.

As I understand it not having suffered from the little blighters they are not added to a colony they develop in one.

As the queens pheromone levels drop as she ceases to operate as a worker layer and becomes a drone layer the inhibitions her pheromones usually create fade too and laying workers either commence or having already been in existence in the colony but not allowed their eggs to hatch, are now allowed as they give of a mild pheromone.

Myself I would like to discuss it with ITLD and see what kinds of levels he has to contend with each Spring given his numbers.

PH

 

[oliver90owner]

I am interested because yes, it does apply to my current situation.

We know that introducing a queen to a 'laying worker colony' can likely have a disasterous effect on the queen - like it being dead shortly thereafter. Laying workers into a queenright colony will not have that same level of risk (there may even be none at all), but I, for one, would not be wanting to test it out - if I only had the one colony to play with. As I said previously and again, above: Now, if the queen is not there, it is a different scenario, and laying workers would be an obvious problem, and I would not try to unite.

Perhaps I should have written 'potentially obvious problem' or 'obvious potential problem'.

Unless there is someone' out there' that does this regularly without problems, I would be very wary having only a single viable colony with which to unite. Strength of that colony could be one factor (unknown at this point of discussion), which might need to be assessed and taken into account.

 

[Finman]

.'
Worker layer colony is no more danger than what ever colony.

Stop reading fairy tales. Worker layer colony is desparately queenless.
What ever you do, you must convince that bees do not attck on the queen.
And the reason is not workers layers. They are normally tens in the hive.
They have no interest to kill the queen.

Quite seldom you may just drop a foreign queen to the hive and it remains alive.

 

[Teemore]

I had two colonies that went queenless in July. Both colonies happened to be close to each other. It would seem that virgin queens didn't make it back friom their mating flights. One of these colonies developed DLWs.

I requeened a third colony (new strain of bee) and thus had a spare, laying queen. I introduced this spare queen into the queenless hive. I then united the colony with DLWs to the newly requeened hive (newspaper method). The runty drones were soon evicted and the united colony built up very well for the Winter.