Requeening a drone layer hive?

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RosieMc

House Bee
Joined
Aug 4, 2009
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232
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Location
Preston uk
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National
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I have a drone layer in one of my hives. Typical pattern of random drone brood over at least 3 frames. I could 'drone' one here, but here's the basics

4 July Bees cover about 5 frames

Today I shook all the bees off the frames, destroyed all the drone cells I could see, and let the flyers return to their hive

Previously I have tried giving them at least 4 test frames over 6 weeks, have given them queen cells etc. but nothing worked. Then the drone layer appeared after the last test frame was put in on 18 June

What should I do now?

1. Should I unit with a stronger colony via the newspaper method?

2. Shake them again at a distance and let them try and be accepted into another hive - I have 4 others.

3. Give them another test frame?

4. Or, I have a laying queen in a mini apidea (Warnholz nuc) which only has a handful of bees. This worries me. I have a feeling they will kill her.

One of my other hives swarmed Friday 1 July and I would prefer to make sure that the swarm and the original hive they came from, both have laying queens first.

Oh knowledgable ones, which method woud you recommend to be the most successful? This has probably already been answered, but I can't find what I need to know. Thank you so much
 
Well, you can't really do anything until you find and kill her. I would be inclined to do it asap. Note that a DLQ is often an undersize queen and is difficult to find. At some point the bees might kill her and then you can be in a pickle because you do not if she is in the box or not.

You could make use of the queen in the Apidea. Any introduction will have to be done with great care.
 
Hello Midland Beek - You have given me such helpful advice in the past. Thank you.

The capped drone brood, from what I have read, looks like a laying worker. Totally random with only a few patches of brood next to each other. I have tried to find her each time I have opened up the hive, but couldn't

What if I shook all the bees from the frames again, then put a queen excluder on the bottom of the brood floor to try to stop her from going back in? There again, if it is a virgin queen, she may be so slim she slips through the QE
 
The capped drone brood, from what I have read, looks like a laying worker. Totally random with only a few patches of brood next to each other. I have tried to find her each time I have opened up the hive, but couldn't

You can also get a poor pattern with a DLQ. Some of the stunted drones die before emergence, get cleaned out by the workers, and can give a 'pepperpot' pattern.

With laying workers you often get more than one egg in a cell. And because the abdomens of workers are not long enough to reach the cell base, eggs are deposited on the sidewalls.

A DLQ is far better than laying workers.

What if I shook all the bees from the frames again, then put a queen excluder on the bottom of the brood floor to try to stop her from going back in? There again, if it is a virgin queen, she may be so slim she slips through the QE

In my experience with DLQ's it has been a case of looking and looking for the queen. A DLQ is often undersize, but the way she walks across the combs can be a giveaway: not like your 'normal' queen, more agitated and in a scrmble-fashion. Filter the bees through a queen excluder and a drone laying queen might easily pass trough.


I have never had a laying worker problem, but I understand there are methods to sort the problem out. IMe, I would be inclined to chuck them out in the corner of the field.
 
I have a DLQ at the moment, it is an old queen who has been laying ok but I think she has run out of the necessary. She does lay a worker now and again and was advised by the Bee Inspector yesterday to find and re=queen. They is one QC the girls are drawing, and the BI suggested I leave it if I want, and see if its a viable Queen. Is that fair comment MB?

(I have problems finding queens at the best of times)
 
I have a drone layer in one of my hives. Typical pattern of random drone brood over at least 3 frames. I could 'drone' one here, but here's the basics

4 July Bees cover about 5 frames

Today I shook all the bees off the frames, destroyed all the drone cells I could see, and let the flyers return to their hive

Previously I have tried giving them at least 4 test frames over 6 weeks, have given them queen cells etc. but nothing worked. Then the drone layer appeared after the last test frame was put in on 18 June

What should I do now?

1. Should I unit with a stronger colony via the newspaper method?

2. Shake them again at a distance and let them try and be accepted into another hive - I have 4 others.

3. Give them another test frame?

4. Or, I have a laying queen in a mini apidea (Warnholz nuc) which only has a handful of bees. This worries me. I have a feeling they will kill her.

One of my other hives swarmed Friday 1 July and I would prefer to make sure that the swarm and the original hive they came from, both have laying queens first.

Oh knowledgable ones, which method woud you recommend to be the most successful? This has probably already been answered, but I can't find what I need to know. Thank you so much
If i was you i would shake your bees off all the frames into the brood chamber and carry the hive about 100 yds away. Then knock all the bees onto the floor and go back and put the frames back into the hive apart from the ones with the drone brood on them. Then get your hive tool and rub it along the combs destroying the sealed drone brood and larve. If your other hives are strong enough replace the drone combs with brood and larve and bees from other hives making sure you find the queens so that they stay in the origional hives!! After all this go back and smoke the bees you tipped out and with a bit of luck you might see the drone laying queen? if so hill her!!! About a weeks time go back and check for queen cells if there are no queen cells then give them a frame of eggs, again from your other hives. With the frames of brood you gave them earlier they should have plenty of nurse bees to know they are queenless and make queen cells, job done. Phew!
 
i concluded i had DLW problem - multiple eggs half way down cells, sporadic pattern and only drone brood, many of which failed to emerge. i tried introducing QCs but no joy, so tonight i took the BB about 200 yards from the apiary and emptied the entire hive onto an old carpet and hope that the homeless bees will find refuge in one of the other 4 Q+ hives on the site.
 
If i was you i would shake your bees off all the frames into the brood chamber and carry the hive about 100 yds away. Then knock all the bees onto the floor and go back and put the frames back into the hive apart from the ones with the drone brood on them. Then get your hive tool and rub it along the combs destroying the sealed drone brood and larve. If your other hives are strong enough replace the drone combs with brood and larve and bees from other hives making sure you find the queens so that they stay in the origional hives!! After all this go back and smoke the bees you tipped out and with a bit of luck you might see the drone laying queen? if so hill her!!! About a weeks time go back and check for queen cells if there are no queen cells then give them a frame of eggs, again from your other hives. With the frames of brood you gave them earlier they should have plenty of nurse bees to know they are queenless and make queen cells, job done. Phew!

Thank you so much Dom and Midland. You comfirm what I have been thinking about for the past couple of days. I have already shook them about 100yards away, thus getting rid of any possible none flying bees which may include a laying worker (so the theory says) and still have a fair stock of older bees who made it back to the hive.

I feel so sorry for the poor inocent nurse bees who were left on the sheet to die. They are still there, all cuddle up in a clump. I am amazed that the birds haven't gobbled them up yet. But united they stand, divided they fall..

Plan 2 is what you say above giving them another shake, and let the returning bees only gain access to the brood chamber via a QE after decapitating any remaining drone cells I can find.

All this is weather dependent - its pouring down here
 
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Laying workers have wings and can fly back to the hive.

Laying Workers

When the hive is queenless, and therefore broodless, for several weeks sometimes some workers develop the ability to lay eggs. It's not actually the lack of a queen, but the lack of brood. But the lack of brood is caused by the lack of a queen. These are usually haploid (infertile with a half set of chromosomes) and will all develop into drones.
Symptoms

Also the laying workers lay these in worker cells, in addition to drone cells and usually lays several in each cell. Laying worker eggs are usually on the side of the cell instead of the bottom except in drone cells. A hive with lots of drones is a symptom of laying workers as are the multiple eggs in the cell.

Sometimes a queen, when she starts laying after a time of not laying, will lay a few double eggs but she usually stops after a day or two. The laying workers will lay three or four to a cell in almost every cell. The difficulty is that the bees think they have a queen (the laying workers) and will not accept one. The laying workers are virtually impossible to find. I have found one in a two frame nuc by studying every bee until I saw one lay, but this is impractical in a full sized hive since there would be too many bees and too many laying workers.
Solutions
Simplest, least trips to the beeyard
Shakeout and forget

In my opinion there are only two practical solutions. The simplest solution if you have several hives and especially if the laying worker hive is a long trip, is just shake all the bees in front of the various other hives and divvy all the combs out to the other hives. This is my preferred method for an outyard or a small hive. It doesn't waste your time and money trying to requeen a hive that is going to reject the queen anyway. This is the method of least time spent on interventions and most predictable outcome.

If you really want to have that many hives, you can pull some frames from them several weeks after the shake out and do a split with some brood from all or several of your hives. A frame of open brood and emerging brood and honey and pollen from each and you'll have a nice split.
Most successful but more trips to the beeyard
Give them open brood

The only other really practical method, in my opinion, is to add a frame of open brood every week until they rear a queen. Usually by the second or third frame of open brood they will start queen cells. This is simple enough when the hive is in your backyard. Not so easy in an outyard 60 miles away.
Other less successful methods

I would do one of the above, but if you want to know every possible method that I've tried, here are the things I have done that sometimes work. Note some appear to be, and are, slight variations of the same theme.

1) If you have several weak laying worker hives and at least one strong queenright hive, put all the laying worker hives on the strong queenright hive. The resulting confusion between several hives will usually settle down to one queenright hive.

2) Put a box with some empty comb on the bottom, a double screen on top of that and the old brood nest on top of that. Put the top entrance in the opposite direction. The field bees will leave the top box and return to the bottom one. After a day you have only nurse bees and the laying worker in the top. Remove them and 24 hours later introduce a queen to the bottom box. Then shake out the top box in front of the other hives and give the honey and pollen back to the original hive. Freeze the drone brood and give it to a strong hive to clean up.

3) Put a queen cell in (either a frame from a hive trying to supersede or swarm or one that you made by queen rearing techniques). Sometimes they will let the queen emerge. Usually they will tear it down.

4) Put a virgin queen in. Just smoke it heavily and run her in. Sometimes they will accept her. Usually they will ball her.

5) Put a laying worker hive over a queenright hive on a double screen board. After about a week, do a newspaper combine. Usually they will accept the queen. Sometimes they will kill the queen in the queenright hive and you now have a very large laying worker hive.

6) Start a nuc with some brood from another hive, if you have one, or just do a shaken swarm from your hive, if it's your only one, and introduce the queen to that nuc. When she's laying nicely and there is open brood in the nuc, do a newspaper combine or, to stack the deck even more, put them on a double screen board for a few weeks and then do the newspaper combine.

7) Put a laying worker hive over a queenright hive on a double screen board and after three weeks, shake the laying worker hive out in front of the queen right hive. This almost always works.

8) Make a queenright nuc from a queen and some brood from a queenright hive. Put the nuc over a double screen board over the laying worker hive. After three weeks do a newspaper combine. Usually this works. Sometimes they kill the queen.

9) Put a frame of emerging brood with a queen in a push in cage in the laying worker hive. When they are no longer biting the cage and killing the emerging attendants, release her. This usually works. Sometimes they will kill the queen.
More info on laying workers
Brood pheromones

It's the pheromones from open brood that suppress the laying workers from developing, but some do anyway. It is NOT the queen pheromone as many of the older books suggest.

See page 11 of Wisdom of the hive:

"the queen's pheromones are neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting worker's ovaries. Instead, they strongly inhibit the workers from rearing additional queens. It is now clear that the pheromones that provide the proximate stimulus for workers to refrain from laying eggs come mainly from the brood, not from the queen (reviewed in Seeling 1985; see also Willis, Winston, and Slessor 1990)."

There are always multiple laying workers even in a queenright hive

"Anarchistic bees" are ever present but usually in small enough numbers to not cause a problem and are simply policed by the workers UNLESS they need drones. The number is always small as long as ovary development is suppressed.

See page 9 of "The Wisdom of the Hive"

"Although worker honey bees cannot mate, they do possess ovaries and can produce viable eggs; hence they do have the potential to have male offspring (in bees and other Hymenoptera, fertilized eggs produce females while unfertilized eggs produce males). It is now clear, however, that this potential is exceedingly rarely realized as long as a colony contains a queen (in queenless colonies, workers eventually lay large numbers of male eggs; see the review in Page and Erickson 1988). One supporting piece of evidence comes from studies of worker ovary development in queenright colonies, which have consistently revealed extremely low levels of development. All studies to date report far fewer than 1 % of workers have ovaries developed sufficiently to lay eggs (reviewed in Ratnieks 1993; see also Visscher 1995a). For example, Ratnieks dissected 10,634 worker bees from 21 colonies and found that only 7 had moderately developed egg (half the size of a completed egg) and that just one had a fully developed egg in her body."

If you do the math, in a normal booming queenright hive of 100,000 bees that's 70 laying workers. In a laying worker hive it's much higher.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm
 
i concluded i had DLW problem - multiple eggs half way down cells, sporadic pattern and only drone brood, many of which failed to emerge. i tried introducing QCs but no joy, so tonight i took the BB about 200 yards from the apiary and emptied the entire hive onto an old carpet and hope that the homeless bees will find refuge in one of the other 4 Q+ hives on the site.

That was my Plan 3 -

Is there a risk to the queens in the neighbouring hives by invading bees if you do this?

Did you Smoke first so that the bees have full tummies and would be welcomed as honey bearers?

Is there a best time of day to do it?

Hope it works for you. Keep us posted
 
Laying workers have wings and can fly back to the hive.

Laying Workers

When the hive is queenless, and therefore broodless, for several weeks sometimes some workers develop the ability to lay eggs. It's not actually the lack of a queen, but the lack of brood. But the lack of brood is caused by the lack of a queen. These are usually haploid (infertile with a half set of chromosomes) and will all develop into drones.
Symptoms

Also the laying workers lay these in worker cells, in addition to drone cells and usually lays several in each cell. Laying worker eggs are usually on the side of the cell instead of the bottom except in drone cells. A hive with lots of drones is a symptom of laying workers as are the multiple eggs in the cell.

Sometimes a queen, when she starts laying after a time of not laying, will lay a few double eggs but she usually stops after a day or two. The laying workers will lay three or four to a cell in almost every cell. The difficulty is that the bees think they have a queen (the laying workers) and will not accept one. The laying workers are virtually impossible to find. I have found one in a two frame nuc by studying every bee until I saw one lay, but this is impractical in a full sized hive since there would be too many bees and too many laying workers.
Solutions
Simplest, least trips to the beeyard
Shakeout and forget

In my opinion there are only two practical solutions. The simplest solution if you have several hives and especially if the laying worker hive is a long trip, is just shake all the bees in front of the various other hives and divvy all the combs out to the other hives. This is my preferred method for an outyard or a small hive. It doesn't waste your time and money trying to requeen a hive that is going to reject the queen anyway. This is the method of least time spent on interventions and most predictable outcome.

If you really want to have that many hives, you can pull some frames from them several weeks after the shake out and do a split with some brood from all or several of your hives. A frame of open brood and emerging brood and honey and pollen from each and you'll have a nice split.
Most successful but more trips to the beeyard
Give them open brood

The only other really practical method, in my opinion, is to add a frame of open brood every week until they rear a queen. Usually by the second or third frame of open brood they will start queen cells. This is simple enough when the hive is in your backyard. Not so easy in an outyard 60 miles away.
Other less successful methods

I would do one of the above, but if you want to know every possible method that I've tried, here are the things I have done that sometimes work. Note some appear to be, and are, slight variations of the same theme.

1) If you have several weak laying worker hives and at least one strong queenright hive, put all the laying worker hives on the strong queenright hive. The resulting confusion between several hives will usually settle down to one queenright hive.

2) Put a box with some empty comb on the bottom, a double screen on top of that and the old brood nest on top of that. Put the top entrance in the opposite direction. The field bees will leave the top box and return to the bottom one. After a day you have only nurse bees and the laying worker in the top. Remove them and 24 hours later introduce a queen to the bottom box. Then shake out the top box in front of the other hives and give the honey and pollen back to the original hive. Freeze the drone brood and give it to a strong hive to clean up.

3) Put a queen cell in (either a frame from a hive trying to supersede or swarm or one that you made by queen rearing techniques). Sometimes they will let the queen emerge. Usually they will tear it down.

4) Put a virgin queen in. Just smoke it heavily and run her in. Sometimes they will accept her. Usually they will ball her.

5) Put a laying worker hive over a queenright hive on a double screen board. After about a week, do a newspaper combine. Usually they will accept the queen. Sometimes they will kill the queen in the queenright hive and you now have a very large laying worker hive.

6) Start a nuc with some brood from another hive, if you have one, or just do a shaken swarm from your hive, if it's your only one, and introduce the queen to that nuc. When she's laying nicely and there is open brood in the nuc, do a newspaper combine or, to stack the deck even more, put them on a double screen board for a few weeks and then do the newspaper combine.

7) Put a laying worker hive over a queenright hive on a double screen board and after three weeks, shake the laying worker hive out in front of the queen right hive. This almost always works.

8) Make a queenright nuc from a queen and some brood from a queenright hive. Put the nuc over a double screen board over the laying worker hive. After three weeks do a newspaper combine. Usually this works. Sometimes they kill the queen.

9) Put a frame of emerging brood with a queen in a push in cage in the laying worker hive. When they are no longer biting the cage and killing the emerging attendants, release her. This usually works. Sometimes they will kill the queen.
More info on laying workers
Brood pheromones

It's the pheromones from open brood that suppress the laying workers from developing, but some do anyway. It is NOT the queen pheromone as many of the older books suggest.

See page 11 of Wisdom of the hive:

"the queen's pheromones are neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting worker's ovaries. Instead, they strongly inhibit the workers from rearing additional queens. It is now clear that the pheromones that provide the proximate stimulus for workers to refrain from laying eggs come mainly from the brood, not from the queen (reviewed in Seeling 1985; see also Willis, Winston, and Slessor 1990)."

There are always multiple laying workers even in a queenright hive

"Anarchistic bees" are ever present but usually in small enough numbers to not cause a problem and are simply policed by the workers UNLESS they need drones. The number is always small as long as ovary development is suppressed.

See page 9 of "The Wisdom of the Hive"

"Although worker honey bees cannot mate, they do possess ovaries and can produce viable eggs; hence they do have the potential to have male offspring (in bees and other Hymenoptera, fertilized eggs produce females while unfertilized eggs produce males). It is now clear, however, that this potential is exceedingly rarely realized as long as a colony contains a queen (in queenless colonies, workers eventually lay large numbers of male eggs; see the review in Page and Erickson 1988). One supporting piece of evidence comes from studies of worker ovary development in queenright colonies, which have consistently revealed extremely low levels of development. All studies to date report far fewer than 1 % of workers have ovaries developed sufficiently to lay eggs (reviewed in Ratnieks 1993; see also Visscher 1995a). For example, Ratnieks dissected 10,634 worker bees from 21 colonies and found that only 7 had moderately developed egg (half the size of a completed egg) and that just one had a fully developed egg in her body."

If you do the math, in a normal booming queenright hive of 100,000 bees that's 70 laying workers. In a laying worker hive it's much higher.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

Thank you so much Hivemaker. I have also read Bush Farm bees, but the methods they state do get clearer when you read them again and again. I will save your excellent advices for the future. I feel sure that your post will help alot of other beekeepers who have similar problems. After this spell of hot weather we have had it may be that we have a repeat of the famour 'May Swarms' we had this year should the weather turn nasty again.
 
HM's post worthy of a sticky?
How about allowing links. Michael Bush's site is a mine of information.

I do as he does for DLQ's - yes they usually can't be found by seiving. I shake bees into various colonies so they are not overloaded, then remove the hive with the DLQ so there's no-where to fly back to. Job needs to be done towards dusk.
 
yes, thats what i did. with light beginning to fail and just a few bees left flying i physically dismantled the hive and took the BB 200yds and emptied the whole lot onto an old carpet. there are 4 Q+ hives in the apiary so i hope the bees may be accepted and any DLWs rejected!
 
How about allowing links. Michael Bush's site is a mine of information.

I do as he does for DLQ's - yes they usually can't be found by seiving. I shake bees into various colonies so they are not overloaded, then remove the hive with the DLQ so there's no-where to fly back to. Job needs to be done towards dusk.

There is alot of information on the site below and may be of help. I only discovered it after I posted.

No matter what advice we read in books or on the internet about bees, and there are many of them, there is nothing like asking a fellow beekeeper for their personal advice, feelings and experiences. That why we have this forum and the advice and help given, is valued.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm
 

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