Laying workers

One of my hives has laying workers, I would just prefer to shake out all the bees and let them join the other hive. I also have a queen right nuc that are just building up at moment on the same stand as the hive I want to expel the the laying worker hive out in front of. Question is.. Will they overwhelm the nuc and kill the queen, or will the nuc be fine?

Shake out all the bees some distance from the hive. The idea being that the laying workers may never have left the hive so won't be able to find their way back. Then when you combine them dust with icing sugar. Hopefully they'll be too busy grooming the sugar off of themselves to notice they're different colonies. It's never 100% though. Good luck.

sharonh said:

One of my hives has laying workers, I would just prefer to shake out all the bees and let them join the other hive. I also have a queen right nuc that are just building up at moment on the same stand as the hive I want to expel the the laying worker hive out in front of. Question is.. Will they overwhelm the nuc and kill the queen, or will the nuc be fine?

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I think that once the laying workers get into a queen right hive the queen's pheremones will stop them laying ... so, assuming there is no queen in the hive you are tipping out I can't see that it's going to be a problem.

Alternatively, put the frames from the Nuc along with the queen in another brood box, put it on top of your laying worker box with a sheet of newspaper in between them and by the time they've got through the newspaper they will all be friends ... as long as there's only one queen.

If there's a few drone cells in there at this time of the year the odds are that they will pull them down or kick the drones out when they hatch ... no big deal.

AugustC said:

Shake out all the bees some distance from the hive. The idea being that the laying workers may never have left the hive so won't be able to find their way back. Then when you combine them dust with icing sugar. Hopefully they'll be too busy grooming the sugar off of themselves to notice they're different colonies. It's never 100% though. Good luck.

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Thanks AugusrC, I shock the whole lot yesterday eve onto a blanket the other side of the garden to rid it of laying workers, but then realized I couldn't unite them with the nuc as they would kill the queen. . I do not want to loose the queen in the nuc. AndI don't have the eggs to give them over a 3 week period for them to start building QC so that they would except a queen then. I thought just to shake them out in front of the other hives, that they would beg to be let in. Only worry I have is that the nuc is only getting going now, and that these bees if going to try and find a new home, will overwhelm them and maybe kill the queen.

pargyle said:

I think that once the laying workers get into a queen right hive the queen's pheremones will stop them laying ... so, assuming there is no queen in the hive you are tipping out I can't see that it's going to be a problem.

Alternatively, put the frames from the Nuc along with the queen in another brood box, put it on top of your laying worker box with a sheet of newspaper in between them and by the time they've got through the newspaper they will all be friends ... as long as there's only one queen.

If there's a few drone cells in there at this time of the year the odds are that they will pull them down or kick the drones out when they hatch ... no big deal.

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Thanks Pargyle, I am afraid to unite the nuc with them, it's very possible they would kill the queen even with the newspaper method in place. I will have to make a decision pretty fast . What I wanted to do, is shake them all out and leave them to beg into either the other hive or the nuc . My fair is the nuc , that they would overwhelm it and when in, maybe kill the queen. Could that happen?

sharonh said:

Thanks Pargyle, I am afraid to unite the nuc with them, it's very possible they would kill the queen even with the newspaper method in place. I will have to make a decision pretty fast . What I wanted to do, is shake them all out and leave them to beg into either the other hive or the nuc . My fair is the nuc , that they would overwhelm it and when in, maybe kill the queen. Could that happen?

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I can't see any reason they would kill the queen ... under either method - it's not in their interests at this time of the year.

Bees are survivors and not stupid. It sounds as though you only have two colonies ... one in a hive with laying workers and a queenright nuc ? So ... if the laying workers are in the hive which does not have a queen ? It makes more sense to combine the two colonies into the one National brood box ... the newspaper method, for my money, sounds like the best bet. It's usually successful and they have nowhere else to go ... and you should end up with a nice strong colony to go into winter if they are still foraging and your queen is still laying.

If you can find the frame with the queen on it, as has been, said you could sugar dust the hive colony (including the laying workers) then transfer your frame with the queen on it into your hive and then sugar dust and shake all the rest of them from the Nuc in ... by the time they've groomed all the icing sugar off they should be fine.

If you are really worried, capture your queen, put her in a queen cage and pop her in the hive to get them used to her before you release her ... if you then shake out the bees from your nuc into the hive with HM in it and let them get on with it. You've got a few options available..

Pargyle: There is a considerable risk that if you newspaper unite a colony with laying workers with a nucleus the laying workers may kill the queen. How do I know ? I have done it several times over the years and although it works sometimes (mainly when you unite to larger queen right colonies) other times I have lost queens. Also it is mainly brood pheromone from worker larvae that inhibit laying workers development and laying activity not just queen pheromones.

AugustC: Laying workers can fly and do not lay continually but take time off to do other jobs including foraging so most know their way home if you shake them out.

I had a hive of laying workers this year they became so in double quick time it took me by surprise. It was early in the laying workers phase perhaps 2 weeks and after first trying a test frame that failed I combined it with a spare queen in a nuc and they accepted her no problem. I took the assumption the queen surrounded by her own bees and they should form protection during the introduction. The hive that had the laying workers was a big double brood job and is still the case.

There is the risk there that they could kill her, so has anyone just shock the bees out of the hive, and hope that they beg to get into others, or is this a risky thing to do. With the Q right nuc just building up, would they overpower them and maybe kill the Q. Wish I knew what to do that wouldn't pose any risk to this Q.

pargyle said:

I can't see any reason they would kill the queen ... .

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Agree with master beekeeper, The dynamics of a DLW hive is quite complicated with false queens with their own retinue of support bees from a more dominant drone laying workers making the hive react as though the DLW hive is Queen right . The largest colony dominates and tries to protect its queen by killing the new queen even if they themselves only have false DLW queens

I have also in the past shook the bees out onto to the floor and in some ways it works they blag their way into the other hives but not without some confusion and lots of flying bees. You have to be confident you have no other underlying health condition otherwise you may make a problem worse.

When I combined the nuc this year with the laying worker hive, I was worried that they would not accept the queen but as she was one of my spare queens I took the risk. It was to good a hive and to good a hive to give up on.

Unfortunately its your call.

Good luck

I, thankfully, don't suffer laying workers too often when uniting is on the cards.

However I have combined with a mesh between the colonies, rather than newspaper. The top colony are confined for a while but in the absence of drones and plenty of tfood, that does not seem to be an issue.

How would moving the hive so it is facing another way and placing the nuc in the place of the hive work. Would the foragers get confused and enter the nuc then accept the nuc as their new colony without harming the queen?

I agree with the the above shake all the bees onto the ground from the laying worker colony, at least 10ft from your nuc.

All the flying bees will eventually be accepted into your nuc via the guard bees and ime the laying workers will languish in the grass.

Very dangerous to unite as you'll be letting the laying workers in through the back door as it were.

richard
Y

richardbees said:

I agree with the the above shake all the bees onto the ground from the laying worker colony, at least 10ft from your nuc.

All the flying bees will eventually be accepted into your nuc via the guard bees and ime the laying workers will languish in the grass.

Very dangerous to unite as you'll be letting the laying workers in through the back door as it were.

richard
Y

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Surely Richard if you go this route put the nuk into a BB first.

Thank you all for your suggestions, must grateful .

richardbees said:

I agree with the the above shake all the bees onto the ground from the laying worker colony, at least 10ft from your nuc.

All the flying bees will eventually be accepted into your nuc via the guard bees and ime the laying workers will languish in the grass.

Very dangerous to unite as you'll be letting the laying workers in through the back door as it were.

richard
Y

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my grandfather would also feed them syrup for 24hrs before the shake out then smoke them heavily before 5 the 2 minutes before shaking to take on honey, making them more acceptable to the guards bees

I am not sure if it's that the DLW cant fly and remain in the grass or that the DLW are rejected by the guards as DLW are harrassed by half sister workers because i have seen both mentioned as the reason for the shake out

richardbees said:

I agree with the the above shake all the bees onto the ground from the laying worker colony, at least 10ft from your nuc.

All the flying bees will eventually be accepted into your nuc via the guard bees and ime the laying workers will languish in the grass.

Very dangerous to unite as you'll be letting the laying workers in through the back door as it were

richard
Y

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Hi Richard, I thought to shake them out and that they'd beg to get in. I was just concerned, with the nuc only starting to build, that the dumped out bees from the hive might harm the nuc & the Q. If not, I would go that route ,if it poses less risk to the Q in the nuc. The hive at the moment is about ten foot away from the nuc. I have another hive beside the nuc on the one stand. Should I just dump them out in front of the other hive and nuc or well away from them.. like other end of the garden? Regards. Sharon

Tom Bick said:

Surely Richard if you go this route put the nuk into a BB first.

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Thanks Tom, I appreciate all the feed back, so should I put the nuc frames into a BB first, or will they be ok, it's a six frame nuc, and this new nuc are only on two frames at moment, I did plan to unite them with an other hive, not the one with the laying workers. So when dumping out the laying worker hive, they will have the nuc and another hive to beg into, is that sufficient. Regards Sharon

As they are on the same stand, is there room to move the nuc more central with the DLW hive placed to one side of it?
If it is, you could move the DLW hive from one side to the other then after a few days move it back to other side.....draws it out for a week or two but would result in a gradual build up of flying bee into the queen right colony (more acceptable when returning with stores than 'mob handed' gatecrashing the hive).
After a couple of weeks the DLW hive will be quite depleted of bees and you could then sake them all out as per other posts.....