Will bees swarm with a Drone Laying Queen?

[BernardBlack]

1. If a Queen is a Drone Layer, and the colony produce new Queen cells, will some bees leave the hive with her if she swarms?

I mean, what would be the point in leaving, as the swarm won’t exactly thrive if she isn’t laying many, if any, workers?


Also:

2. If she was superseded, will the Queen(s) emerging from the new Queen cell(s) be adequate?

 

[JamezF]

1. If a Queen is a Drone Layer, and the colony produce new Queen cells, will some bees leave the hive with her if she swarms?

My first thought is that a colony with a drone-laying queen would be very unlikely to swarm with that queen in the first place. If she's the only queen present then presumably the previous queen would have left with a swarm in the previous month or so and there'd be little pressure to swarm again. If she's a supercedure queen then presumably the older queen present isn't up to snuff and it also seems unlikely that there'd be pressure to swarm?

James

 

[Wilco]

1. If a Queen is a Drone Layer, and the colony produce new Queen cells, will some bees leave the hive with her if she swarms?

I mean, what would be the point in leaving, as the swarm won’t exactly thrive if she isn’t laying many, if any, workers?


Also:

2. If she was superseded, will the Queen(s) emerging from the new Queen cell(s) be adequate?

If she's a DLQ they can't supercede her. That would require a fertilised egg.

 

[JamezF]

I've just realised that another possibility is that a once-viable queen has become a DLQ as a result of poor mating. Again I'd have thought it unlikely that the colony would swarm because they'd have nothing to create new queen cells from and there may also be insufficient young (worker) bees to go with a swarm.

James