Egg laying worker

[the beehive lodge]

Got me thinking if a wild colony lost its Q over the winter and no brood available to make emergency cells
if a worker starts laying drones this must be a survival instict

My main question is has anyone in controlled condtions put a drone egg/lava in a Q cell for the colony to rear and what was the out come

 

[Tom Bick]

All workers have the ability to lay eggs and a number of them do even with a perfect queen is present in the hive.

The same result will happen in a wild colony as with a managed colony and the colony has no queen and it has laying workers, the result doomed hive.

As for grafting a drone into a queen cup I suspect the result is drone

 

[thurrock bees]

i agree with tom. only the Queen can lay fertile eggs producing worker or queens. workers can only lay infertile eggs resulting in Drones. nice idea though. In the wild if they lose their Queen and dont have the means to raise a new Queen. they will naturally die out and a swarm may move in.

 

[Heather]

Just wonder how big the drone would be with that extra protein? Although it is the developed ovaries that enlarge the queen to her extended size.

 

[Chris B]

Thinking about it, laying workers contribute nothing to the survival of a colony. But in a collapsing colony if they produce drones, then at least they have a last chance to spread their genes around a bit. In evolutionary terms it makes sense.

 

[oliver90owner]

Thinking about it,

You are probably right.

But likely a forlorn attempt as the drones are usually undersized due to being in worker cells? Might work as a last resort if no other full sized drones were available, that is if they were developed well enough to be fertile...

Regards, RAB

 

[the beehive lodge]

Thanks for all your thoughts and possible outcomes
i will read with interest

 

[Midland Beek]

My main question is has anyone in controlled condtions put a drone egg/lava in a Q cell for the colony to rear and what was the out come.

If a colony is up s*** creek and has a drone laying queen they will usually try to raise a queen using unfertilized eggs by feeding the larva royal jelly. They often die at the pupal stage.

Not sure whether bees are inclined to do this in the case of laying workers.