laying workers....an update

[thebhoy]

Follow up to an earlier post re laying workers in one of my hives and several failed attempts to requeen with bought in queens.

Shook out all bees from hive 100' from hive location two weeks ago and destroyed as much of the drone brood that I could see.
Next day I placed a small swarm colony on top using the newspaper method.
Checked last week, removed paper (they had only made a small hole between both boxes) checked and could see eggs on swarm comb and across all other bb .... suspected the laying workers had returned and carried on laying, couldn't see a queen anywhere.
Decided to leave it be...
Checked today, again loads of eggs and bias but was still anticipating that it was laying workers.

Suddenly I seen the queen running across a frame, very quickly Happy Days .... closed the hive down and left it.

Just need a very good run for her to keep laying, will add a couple of frames of capped brood from another hive this week and try to get the numbers up before making a decision whether to keep in full hive or drop down into a nuc.

Hives are in the middle of HB and has ivy just opening up around them too.

Many thanks to everybody that offered suggestions and advice as well as support

 

[enrico]

I would be leaving them to it now....disturb them as little as possible!
E

 

[beeno]

Hi thebhoy,
BIAS includes capped cells, so congrats on a completed marathon.