Laying workers?

[Hawklord]

I have a problem with a nuc I created a couple of months ago and am un sure what to do with it. I left it with a good queen cell and a queen did start to lay 2 weeks ago, however the queen was so small she couldn't lay the eggs at the bottom of the cells. I was lucky enough to have a queen cell in another colony so I squashed the naff queen and put the capped queen cell in. Last week when I looked the eggs that had been laid by the naff queen were capped drone cells and the queen cell hadn't hatched. When I opened the cell it was just mush. So what to do with the bees that are in this hive? I think it too late to start trying to raise another queen and I don't want to start boosting it with frames of bees from another colony as I fear I'll be wasting the other colonies. I am affraid to unite as i am un sure what will happen if there are laying workers present. Anybody got any suggestions? I am thinking about sieving the colony through a queen excluder to get rid of the drones and any possible queen that is in there.

 

[Max]

Its a right off!!

Destroy the lot, recycle the frames, scorch the nuc and start again.

Once you have laying workers they are finished, you cannot requeen or unite with another colony.

I had two nucs that the queen failed to return from her mating flights, laying workers soon appeared, so I destroyed both and started again. Now I have two nucs that are building up fast.

Waste of time trying to save a lost course.

 

[theengraver]

Its not a right off
go through it and find if there is a queen
If there is kill her
If not all well and good
Then you need a good queen
have her in the cage in your pocket
Shake out every frame a little way in front of your hive
and tip out any remaining bees in the brood box on the floor

put the frames back clip the queen inbetween two frames
put the lid back on

If you only have drones and no workers in the hive then its a right off

 

[kazmcc]

Its not a right off
go through it and find if there is a queen
If there is kill her
If not all well and good
Then you need a good queen
have her in the cage in your pocket
Shake out every frame a little way in front of your hive
and tip out any remaining bees in the brood box on the floor

put the frames back clip the queen inbetween two frames
put the lid back on

If you only have drones and no workers in the hive then its a right off

How does this work? Does the laying worker not just fly back to the hive? Thanks for explaining it so well, some procedures are quite difficult for me to understand sometimes.

 

[oliver90owner]

You are not leaving yourself with many or any options.

You have already said the queen was a really tiny scrub queen, so sieving would serve little definite purpose, as far as I can tell as there should be no drones in any number (they need over 3 weeks brooding cycle and you say she only started laying two weeks ago). And what would you do then? That would not solve anything.

I would doubt there is a laying worker problem yet, with still brood in the frames, but if you are 'afraid' and 'don't want to' then the option would be a) a test frame to determine Q- and then introduce a laying queen when sure it is Q- or b) destroy or c) leave to die out, both the latter not being sensible beekeeping options IMO.

RAB

 

[huntsman666]

A difficulty with using a capped queen cell (only one) is knowing if it's viable. Best to use an unsealed cell where you know there is a strong larva present.

You can 'candle' a sealed cell if you have a high powered LED to get an idea as to conditions inside.

(Now to sit back and wait for the attack.)

 

[TJSnapper]

The bee inspector diagnosed one of our hives to have Drone Laying Workers yesterday he thought the best course of action would be to shake the bees out in front of the hives and let them sort themselves out.

 

[dilys]

My advice is to simply put a queen cell in with protection around it. The bees will usually treat it as a supersedure cell and kill off any existing queen or laying workers. You just have to hope that it was a good cell.

Dil

 

[susbees]

My advice is to simply put a queen cell in with protection around it. The bees will usually treat it as a supersedure cell and kill off any existing queen or laying workers. You just have to hope that it was a good cell.

Dil

How does that work? In supercedure the queen and new queen often lay side by side for a time. Be interested to see any references to them killing off LW.

I have a similar problem with a cast swarm, unmated queen so uselessly small I can't find her even though they are only on five half frames drawn, laying bottom of the cell, sometimes two eggs, all drone cappings. A few queen cups over eggs destroyed and the whole lot shaken out last Saturday....

...and eggs again when I looked (hoping to find none) on Tuesday!

And worse: a twin capped King Cell!! With two larvae in it...not a worker cell in sight.

 

[dilys]

How does that work? In supercedure the queen and new queen often lay side by side for a time. Be interested to see any references to them killing off LW.

In most supersedure instances the old queen is killed and replaced by the new one. Queenright spersedure, where the old queen is retained, is quite rare.

I don't think you will find many references to my method being proven scientifically - you just have to trust me that it usually works. I have been using the technique for about 3 years and with about 30 colonies I have had several opportunities to try it out. I thought I had invented the system but I later discovered that the Aussies use something similar to replace dud queens in mating nucs.

Dil

 

[susbees]

OK, thanks for that. Will give it a try.

 

[666bees]

Hope your right, I have a laying worker in one hive and have put an old queen in it. She's been in there a week now and everything seems ok for the moment.

 

[Hawklord]

I did put a test frame in a week ago, and they had drawn queen cells on it this week. I split this nuc off from the parent colony at the end of April and there are now dwarf drones present. This week end I knocked the queen cells off and removed all the loose bees and put it back into the colony it came from. All store frames minus bees have been added to another colony and the 5 frames with drone come have been removed. The bees were shook through a queen excluder into a box with 3 frames of foundation. This will remove any queen, although I doubt there is one, and the drones. If there is no where for the workers to lay will they revedrt to working again

 

[Steve Dyer]

Hope your right, I have a laying worker in one hive and have put an old queen in it. She's been in there a week now and everything seems ok for the moment.

I am open to correction here, but I thought the reason a "laying worker" hive would be a write-off was because it takes ages (2 months+) for workers to start laying and by that time there aren't any nurse bees left. If you have an early laying worker but the mix in the hive is ok then you may be able to introduce a queen and presumably her pheremones will stop the laying workers...??

 

[Hivemaker.]

I am open to correction here, but I thought the reason a "laying worker" hive would be a write-off was because it takes ages (2 months+) for workers to start laying and by that time there aren't any nurse bees left. If you have an early laying worker but the mix in the hive is ok then you may be able to introduce a queen and presumably her pheremones will stop the laying workers...??

Some will turn laying worker in as short a time as a week,queenless mating nuc's often do just this. There are also a proportion of laying workers in most queenright hives.