Drones

[marmite]

Just inspected a hive and there seems to a massive amount of drone brood but no other brood.However there does appear to be a couple of small queen cells.
Have I got a laying worker and what do I do about it? The hive is on a brood and a half.

 

[oliver90owner]

Doubtful.

Think of the more obvious and simple explanation - a drone laying queen.

 

[YorkshireBees]

Just inspected a hive and there seems to a massive amount of drone brood but no other brood.However there does appear to be a couple of small queen cells.
Have I got a laying worker and what do I do about it? The hive is on a brood and a half.

With only drone brood present, you more than likely have a DLQ (Drone laying queen). Forget about the Queen cells as more than likely they contain non-fertilised eggs!

As you haven't filled in your profile I have no idea how many hives you have.
To be honest the hive is pretty much doomed as I'm guessing that most of the frames have that much drone brood in them that they will need replacing. What you need to do is either find the Queen and remove her or shake them out away from the hive position. Once that is done either a new queen could be introduced or a frame of eggs from another hive.
That's all assuming there are enough worker bees still in the hive.
Also I would consider swapping some of the frames.

 

[marmite]

Sorry I have been away. I started this year with only 2 hives but the hive in question had several queen cells. Two of these were moved to separate hives with some frames of bees and nectar.One of these is doing well and the other surviving but quite weak. The hive then swarmed . I collect the swarm and put it into another hive which is doing well. Another hive swarmed and I managed to collect that swarm which is also doing well but the hive from which it came is fairly weak.So to summarize I now have6 hives and 3 are doing well but 3 are weak including the one full of drones. Hope this makes sense

 

[Travelator]

So if I've understood correctly, you have raised 4 queens this season. Three are mated and laying (?) and one has turned out to be a drone-layer, so that's a success rate of 75% which is quite good.

Assuming that the drone laying queen hypothesis is correct (which seems highly likely to me), you now need to get rid of her and unite what's left of the colony with a stronger colony.