Small patch of brood in super?

[YorkshireBees]

On inspection of 2 of my hives yesterday I was surprised to find that the bottom super (just above Queen Excluder) had a few (2-3) frames, centrally located, with a very small patch of brood on them.

I am literally talking the bottom 2-4 lines of cells on both sides of the frames.
The brood consisted of eggs / lavae, I didn't see any sealed brood.

I assumed at first that somehow the queen had managed to get into the super.
The 1st hive I found this in, I checked every super frame and on top of the queen excluder but couldn't find the existing queen (2011 marked) or spot any new queen.
I was inspecting both of these hives to perform a demaree AS anyway as they were getting short of space for egg laying.
When I inspected the brood box, in both cases, I found the marked queens happily laying eggs.
In both cases the QE is a T's punched metal QE that was actually brand new (replacement of the naff plastic undersized slot ones!).

Any theories on how this could happen?

Can workers move eggs and if so would they move them above a QE??

I have noted it all down and will check again next inspection to see if there are any new eggs.

 

[oliver90owner]

How much space was there when these eggs were deposited? If chock-a-bloc then they may have moved some.

If she is small, and got through the Q/E she may not get up there again this year if there is plenty of space downstairs. The punched steel sheet excluders are very easy to compare with another example (micrometer or a suitable drill bit for instance). I have never had a problem with those Q/Es.

Regards, RAB

 

[YorkshireBees]

How much space was there when these eggs were deposited? If chock-a-bloc then they may have moved some.

If she is small, and got through the Q/E she may not get up there again this year if there is plenty of space downstairs. The punched steel sheet excluders are very easy to compare with another example (micrometer or a suitable drill bit for instance). I have never had a problem with those Q/Es.

Regards, RAB

Yes both hives were pretty short of laying space, hence the planned Demaree.

I am pretty confident that the existing queen had not been in the supers, as with all that pre-drawn comb available I believe there would have been a lot more brood laid!
Also both of the queens are of a reasonable size that I believe they would not slip thru the QE.

Really I just wanted someone elses opinion to see if it matched mine that the workers had in fact moved a few eggs.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[Midland Beek]

When capped, check to see if these are worker-laid drones. If not, then the queen has squeezed through the excluder. WOrkers do not move eggs around.

 

[Polyanwood]

WOrkers do not move eggs around.

Are you sure? I''m not so sure. I have seen eggs in supers when queen could not pass and also I have seen workers move eggs out of cells where a new queen is over enthusiastically sometimes putting two in the bottom of the cell. I have also ocassionally seen eggs on the varroa tray.

 

[YorkshireBees]

When capped, check to see if these are worker-laid drones. If not, then the queen has squeezed through the excluder. WOrkers do not move eggs around.

I disagree, although I can't be 100% certain that they are eggs moved by workers, the alternatives don't make sense.

Laying worker(s) - Hive is Q+ and the super was directly above the brood box with only a QE between. For a worker to start laying I would expect it to have to be removed (in at least distance) further from the Queens influence.

Queen squeezed through excluder - why, if she had managed to get through, would she lay just a few eggs along the bottom of a couple of frames and then squeeze back through the excluder into the brood box (where I found her) afterwards without taking advantage of the space available in both of the supers?

So for me the more logical (simple) explanation as per RAB's reply is that the workers moved some eggs due to over-crowding.

I guess I will not be able to prove it either way besides if all the brood is drone!

 

[tonybloke]

If not, then the queen has squeezed through the excluder. WOrkers do not move eggs around.

you keep stating this as if it was a fact?

your peer reviewed evidence is to be found where?

 

[alanf]

You have two hives, same types, same stage of development. Next to each other? Both have the same amount of brood, in the same tight pattern. Brood of the same age appearing in the same place only just on the 'wrong' side of the excluder.

Could it be the way the hives are being handled? Was there ever an inspection when supers were stacked on the brood boxes without a QX between them? Maybe only for 30 minutes or so while you were scraping propolis or brace comb off the QX. The queen continued laying and strayed into the super. Later handling of the super frames driving her back down into the brood before reassembly with cleaned QX back in place. Just a thought.

 

[oliver90owner]

I have noted it all down and will check again next inspection to see if there are any new eggs.

It will become clear over the next week. If the capped brood is drone in worker cells. Otherwise it ain't laying workers. I have certainly never seen bees moving eggs, but I have read of it. They most certainly remove eggs from cells and if they do move eggs it would not be sensible to move them any further than the periphery of the broodnest, so it may just happen that if the brood area were full the adjacent cells are the wrong side of the Q/E (and honey arch, too, should there be one). It most certainly is not a regular occurence, if they do, but I would not rule it out, until someone provides the evidence.

 

[Midland Beek]

Laying worker(s) - Hive is Q+ and the super was directly above the brood box with only a QE between. For a worker to start laying I would expect it to have to be removed (in at least distance) further from the Queens influence.

Dr Ratnieks work on egg laying workers is worth tracking down. They are in all colonies, and more workers are capable of laying eggs in any colony than we would perhaps imagine. If they turn into drones then they would have to be worker laid eggs.

 

[Hivemaker.]

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.

 

[YorkshireBees]

You have two hives, same types, same stage of development. Next to each other? Both have the same amount of brood, in the same tight pattern. Brood of the same age appearing in the same place only just on the 'wrong' side of the excluder.

Could it be the way the hives are being handled? Was there ever an inspection when supers were stacked on the brood boxes without a QX between them? Maybe only for 30 minutes or so while you were scraping propolis or brace comb off the QX. The queen continued laying and strayed into the super. Later handling of the super frames driving her back down into the brood before reassembly with cleaned QX back in place. Just a thought.

I am very careful during inspections to keep supers / brood boxes separated. Generally the supers go onto the upturned roof whilst I am inspecting the BB. If / when I have to move the BB, for example during a Demaree manipulation, then I take along a spare floor / stand with the new BB so that I can just move the original BB (still on the floor / stand) to the side.

So I am 100% certain that the Queen didn't enter the supers that way.

As I said before I will check on my next inspection to see what the sealed cells are and then I will know if it was a laying worker or not.

 

[alanf]

So I am 100% certain that the Queen didn't enter the supers that way.

Only a suggestion. Another thought occurs after recent inspections. I have some comb being laid up as brood where I would normally expect only brace comb on top of frames, more experienced locals have seen similar comb which they agree is unusual. One suggestion is that the weather has restricted wax working to only the warmer areas of the nest such as over the existing brood frames.

Could it be that some cells with eggs were damaged on inspection while moving the QX and part of the repair processing has seen the workers shift the eggs to the nearest undamaged empty cells above the QX?

Seems odd that it's so hard to spot eggs being moved in a bee colony when it's a common summer sight to see ants rushing around to shift eggs and larvae when a lifted paving slab disturbs a nest.

 

[YorkshireBees]

and the answer is, for those interested, that the brood did turn out to be only drones however it was greatly reduced to 2-3 sealed drone brood cells and the rest of the eggs must have been removed by other workers.

I have only managed to check one of the two hives so far but I would expect to see the same result in the other hive.

On close inspection of the super frames concerned, they have both a honey / pollen arch just like a brood frame.