Multiple eggs in cells

Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum

Help Support Beekeeping & Apiculture Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Deerless

New Bee
Joined
Jun 16, 2011
Messages
19
Reaction score
0
Location
Sutton in Ashfield, Notts
Hive Type
None
I have seen the queen and there are lots of cells with single eggs in them. I also noticed quite a few cells with multiple eggs, which suggests egg laying workers.
Read the books I have and confused as to best action.

One local keeper suggests catching queen and then carrying brood box some distance away and shaking out all bees before returning brood box to original location and re introducing queen. This seems drastic so advice sought please.

Deerless
 
How old is the queen? New queens can sometimes take a while to get the technique right. The workers will move the eggs about if that's the case.
 
I wouldn't do anything yet, sometimes the queen goes a bit nuts for a while. !!!
E
 
I have seen the queen and there are lots of cells with single eggs in them. I also noticed quite a few cells with multiple eggs, which suggests egg laying workers.
Read the books I have and confused as to best action.

One local keeper suggests catching queen and then carrying brood box some distance away and shaking out all bees before returning brood box to original location and re introducing queen. This seems drastic so advice sought please.

Deerless

I would also say it is drastic at this stage. When you say multiple just how many? Plenty of hives have a few laying workers, but in most cases the bees remove the eggs or a few get through and you have a few smaller drones in the hive. I would give her more time and she could be very prolific and laying all the eggs or perhaps she has a problem and more time may confirm. How are the bees for space?
 
It could also suggest she ran out of space to lay.

Little observations as to position of eggs in the cells might differentiate, as well as other observations.

Tell us more, or we are just guessing.
 
Hi Deerless,
Trying to put you out of your misery. If you have a queen, then you should not have laying workers. One egg at the bottom of the cell means you have a laying queen. If you have numerous eggs in a cell, but still at the bottom of the cell you have a newly mated queen. However, if you have multiple eggs in a cell on the sides of the cells, not the bottom you have laying workers. The whole point is that layer workers abdomen are to short to be able to lay the egg at the bottom of the cell! Saying this, I and another forum member had eggs laid by queen that never hatched.
 
If you have a queen, then you should not have laying workers. The whole point is that layer workers abdomen are to short to be able to lay the egg at the bottom of the cell!

Myth.... laying workers can and often do lay a single egg in the bottom center of each cell and in a regular pattern, and most if not all queenright colonies will have a small percentage of laying workers.

Old and failing queens can have more laying workers and can also be more difficult to re queen.
 
Last edited:
Myth.... laying workers can and often do lay a single egg in the bottom center of each cell and in a regular pattern, and most if not all queenright colonies will have a small percentage of laying workers.

Old and failing queens can have more laying workers and can also be more difficult to re queen.

Bang goes the theory. Although I cannot second that myself.
 
Mun, its quite common as the queen ramps up her laying, it can be a function of not enough workers to prepare enough cells for her and she needs to put them somewhere, the workers will generally cannabalise the spare eggs. Does the sealed brood look normal?
 
Probably doesn't help you at all, but I had a similar sort of panicky moment last year when I saw this :-

picture.php


I waited till brood was capped, and then left them to it when I knew it was workers.

That queen is, as far as I know, still there and going great guns this year.
 
I have seen the queen and there are lots of cells with single eggs in them. I also noticed quite a few cells with multiple eggs, which suggests egg laying workers.
Read the books I have and confused as to best action.

One local keeper suggests catching queen and then carrying brood box some distance away and shaking out all bees before returning brood box to original location and re introducing queen. This seems drastic so advice sought please.

Deerless

If you end up with lots of laying workers and a failed queen then as above shake bees swap hive positions as laying workers won't be allowed into a Q+ hive, requeen hive and then swap boxes again
 
The queen was a late hatch last season. Eggs are at the bottom of cells, which suggests they were laid by queen.
From the replies, I think she has just gone into overdrive with laying a as she didn't really get going before winter.
Plan is to add super and see what happens. Adjacent rape fields have come into flower so they will soon be piling it in.

Thanks for the advice.

Deerless.
 
Back
Top