hive drones laying workers???

[tom8400]

Hi all

Just a quick check to see if I've got this right. Opened up a colony four days ago it was a 14x12 excluder then 6 supers however I'd not checked for a while and only been flipping the top supers for extraction. This was my calm colony that I acquired last summer with no knowledge of how old the queen was.

However I opened it up four days ago to get a the lower supers out only to discover sealed cells above the excluder and eggs I didn't pay enough attention as there were also q'cs with jelly and lava. my thoughts were that the last time I must have got the queen in the wrong place.

I searched the brood box and had a good look no sign of the queen and it was packed with honey and pollen. still two undrawn frames. I decided the only option was to shake all six supers into the brood. I did give them a extra super although it was rather full already then place excluder followed by all the now empty supers.


I opened today thinking I'd find my favourite queen laying well in the bottom again and the honey moved up. Well this isn't the case they haven't moved much of the honey they all apear to be mainly drone cells although one block did look like brood, I found eggs in cells but on close inspection they were normally more than one egg (laying workers?)

So would I be right to assume queen has died of old age and never reared a replacement in time? as surely the workers wouldn't have started laying so soon after her disappearance? I will check again in a couple of days I could take a standard frame with eggs from another hive and see if they draw a q/c and then destroy all other fakes. I will say I don't believe this hive to have swarmed

Sorry for the long story but I wanted to try and get a second opinion

 

[MartinL]

I opened today
one block did look like brood,

I will check again in a couple of days
I could take a standard frame with eggs from another hive and see if they draw a q/c
I will say I don't believe this hive to have swarmed

They may well have swarmed and virgin failed??
I'd get a frame with eggs in asap but also remove the QE at the same time.

Cover your bases now & check in another weeks time.

 

[eltalia]

They may well have swarmed and virgin failed??
I'd get a frame with eggs in asap but also remove the QE at the same time.

Cover your bases now & check in another weeks time.

A frame of new egss - if available - is a bootstrap 'fix' sure... where that is n0t
available then there is no real worry, yet.

@tom8400
Your manipilatipns have trapped that queen and either she was despatched
or harmed and so died.
I'd offer your action now is the way to go but leave the QX(QE) out of the equation
until you see a queen laying up brood.
Don't panic yet, plenty of time left yet for them to sort it before taking up LWS.

Bill

 

[coffindodger]

See threads in main forum - haven't seen so many queries about this in earlier years.