Laying worker

[666bees]

If you have a laying worker and you give the bees a frame of fertile eggs will they produce queen cells and rear a new queen.

Caught swarm 3 weeks ago, eggs,lava,sealled brood all being made into drones. Shook bees through queen excuder no queen seen. For those who say how do you know if there is not a queen in there.

If not should I just shake the bees out onto the grass and forget about them.

Thanks

 

[susbees]

Small scrubby stale queen is the problem, as in un-mated so goes through the queen excluder and lays only unfertilised (drone) eggs. The bees would only have swarmed with a queen of some sort. You'll need to find her and replace her.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

Colonies with laying workers are not good at producing queens. It is said that you need to put a comb of brood in per week for 3 weeks until they decide to produce a queencell from a frame. It is brood pheromone that inhibits laying workers.
If your swarm colony has a sensible brood pattern rather than random patches and the eggs are in the bottom of the cells, then you may just have a duff queen - even if you can't find her.

You may have missed the queen when you caught the swarm or she failed to mate.

My suggestion - provided it's less than, say, 1/2 the size of a good colony, is to shake it in front of a strong hive in the evening and they will walk up a board as re-hiving a swarm. If a queen is present she will be killed. If laying workers, there's enough good pheromones and workers in the hive to stop the laying worker tendancy. I've done it twice this year with queens that failed to mate and twice last year. Worked each time. You can also shake out some of the bees into a weak colony to strengthen it. Have a look at Michael Bush's website in the USA.

 

[susbees]

My suggestion - provided it's less than, say, 1/2 the size of a good colony, is to shake it in front of a strong hive in the evening and they will walk up a board as re-hiving a swarm. If a queen is present she will be killed. If laying workers, there's enough good pheromones and workers in the hive to stop the laying worker tendancy. I've done it twice this year with queens that failed to mate and twice last year. Worked each time. You can also shake out some of the bees into a weak colony to strengthen it. Have a look at Michael Bush's website in the USA.

Interesting

 

[Midland Beek]

There is a clear difference between the laying pattern of laying workers and a a DLQ. Once you have worked out that you have a DLQ and not laying workers at all, you will also know that she is small enough to fit through a queen exluder.

Just realized I am repeating what susbees has said.

 

[huntsman666]

<If you have a laying worker and you give the bees a frame of fertile eggs will they produce queen cells and rear a new queen.>

One view is to give them such a frame a week, for three weeks.

 

[susbees]

<If you have a laying worker and you give the bees a frame of fertile eggs will they produce queen cells and rear a new queen.>

One view is to give them such a frame a week, for three weeks.

Which would be pointless with a DLQ...the swarm was only collected three weeks ago so LW doesn't fit with the timescale.

 

[drstitson]

i believe that a DLQ will still lay in a tight pattern on the comb whereas laying workers are all over the place.

 

[666bees]

Still carn't find the queen, ripped the hive apart, bees only on 4 frames. Now given frame of eggs to see what they do with them. Will look again tomorrow for eggs or queen cells being produced.

 

[Heather]

When I had this scenario, I shook all hive out on a sheet on the lawn about 30yds away giving all the flyers a hive to return to- with some drawn comb. I did find the queen on the sheet.
I requeened with a laying queen about 4 hours later. Sorted the problem. You could introduce a virgin queen instead- just lengthens the recovery time. Or introduce the frame of eggs

 

[Midland Beek]

What point giving a frame of eggs if there is a queen in the hive already laying eggs?

You have a small queen which is of similar size to a worker. She is that small she could be anywhere in the hive. Try looking at each frame in a circular pattern, from the outsides of a frame, round and around until you are at the centre of the comb. Do not look too closely - a DLQ might typically stagger over the combs in a nervous fashion, and the way she walks across the combs is a bit of a give-away.

 

[666bees]

I am trying to find her and will rip it apart tomorrow again in a bid to find her. I did have help trying to find her, a bee keeper with more than 50yrs experience and still we couldn't see her. Small queen ? the other swarm I caught from the same place had a large queen, would have thought she should have been of a similar size.

 

[melormynydd]

easyest thing to do is to shake the bees outside another hive entrance and leave them to it.
or if you want them to raise another queen, shake the bees on the ground or in to a hedge a few meters from the hive position, bees will return to original position and queen will die outside of hive. introduce a frame of eggs/young brood leave them to it for 4 days
destroy first caped cells and leave one good open one. feed 1;1 syrup as cells are being drawn out. leave for 4 weeks(but do check on food levels, i leave a hardend bag of sugar on the crown board and check that rather than have to go through the hive) then you may have a new queen. hopefully!

 

[Finman]

.
Problem is that you want to see the queen but you do not see.

If the cappings tell that brood is normal workers, why you must see the queen? of course if it i very small, it is better to renew.
Move the hive 3 metres.

Then make a new hive to bees. Put there combs and one brood frame.
Bees fly to their old site and soon you have guite few bee + queen in the old hive.

 

[666bees]

Got given an old queen lastnight, have put here in the hive and the bees seem quite interested in her. Will they take to her an kill an egg laying worker if it is that?