goodbobby
House Bee
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2009
- Messages
- 104
- Reaction score
- 0
- Location
- Sanderstead Surrey
- Hive Type
- 14x12
- Number of Hives
- 5+
This year started badly in that all 4 of my over-wintered 14 x 12 National colonies swarmed at the very beginning of April before I had got out of the starting blocks. Thanks to advice from the forum I retrieved the situation and got back to 5 Q + colonies (including one returning swarm!). By early June all of the colonies were expanding nicely, bringing in pollen and double-supered with honey coming in.
Now, on an inspection last Friday I found one colony which has left me scratching my head……Although there are a total of 9 BB frame (sides) of normal sealed brood in a good solid pattern with some adjacent young open brood there is also a lot of capped drone brood, probably a further 6 BB frame sides heavy with large patches of drone brood. BB stores are light although the colony is laying down stores in the 2 supers above. There are several frame sides of pollen. I cannot see any eggs.
There are plenty of bees and the colony is very active. I cannot find a queen and, given the very high level of capped drone cells it seems that there is the possibility of a drone laying queen being present or drone laying workers. However, the high level of solid pattern sealed normal brood and young adjacent unsealed brood makes me wonder whether there is any possibility of there being a DLQ /or DLW’s as well as a mated normal queen? I know this sounds unlikely but I have heard of 2 queens co-existing in a hive.
As to resolving the situation there appears to be several suggested methods:
1. Shaking out the bees some distance from the hive, scratching out the drone comb and returning the frames and hive to their original site, then re-queen or leave the resultant “cleansed colony” to rear QCs from the open brood . The drone layers are then said to be stranded and thus eliminated, the workers flying back to the hive. However, some beeks comment that DLW’s can still fly so this method is possibly suspect?
2. Re-queening with a virgin queen as a virgin queen may be accepted by the colony??????
3. Uniting with a stronger Q+ colony which seems somewhat risky for your queen in the existing colony as laying workers may kill her.
Q1. Could I be seeing a situation as described in paragraph 3? Alternatively, might a colony tolerate a normal queen plus DLWs giving this mix of laying patterns?
Q2.Any advice on dealing with this described situation?
Assistance would be very much appreciated
Now, on an inspection last Friday I found one colony which has left me scratching my head……Although there are a total of 9 BB frame (sides) of normal sealed brood in a good solid pattern with some adjacent young open brood there is also a lot of capped drone brood, probably a further 6 BB frame sides heavy with large patches of drone brood. BB stores are light although the colony is laying down stores in the 2 supers above. There are several frame sides of pollen. I cannot see any eggs.
There are plenty of bees and the colony is very active. I cannot find a queen and, given the very high level of capped drone cells it seems that there is the possibility of a drone laying queen being present or drone laying workers. However, the high level of solid pattern sealed normal brood and young adjacent unsealed brood makes me wonder whether there is any possibility of there being a DLQ /or DLW’s as well as a mated normal queen? I know this sounds unlikely but I have heard of 2 queens co-existing in a hive.
As to resolving the situation there appears to be several suggested methods:
1. Shaking out the bees some distance from the hive, scratching out the drone comb and returning the frames and hive to their original site, then re-queen or leave the resultant “cleansed colony” to rear QCs from the open brood . The drone layers are then said to be stranded and thus eliminated, the workers flying back to the hive. However, some beeks comment that DLW’s can still fly so this method is possibly suspect?
2. Re-queening with a virgin queen as a virgin queen may be accepted by the colony??????
3. Uniting with a stronger Q+ colony which seems somewhat risky for your queen in the existing colony as laying workers may kill her.
Q1. Could I be seeing a situation as described in paragraph 3? Alternatively, might a colony tolerate a normal queen plus DLWs giving this mix of laying patterns?
Q2.Any advice on dealing with this described situation?
Assistance would be very much appreciated
