Has anyone seen a laying worker

[Torq]

I won't go into the details but I've an apidea with a handful of bees and the tiniest queen I've ever seen, she's not much bigger than a worker. But is she really a queen or a laying worker that has elongated her abdomen slightly. I've no history of her and there's no laying yet as the bees are only building the comb now.

Queen or laying worker....?

 

[Heather]

Proof of the pudding club will be in the 'eating'...

Eggs will tell you, but only after first week of laying.. New queen may just lay too many initially till she gets ,literally, into her stride!
Multiple after 2 weeks laying... Oops! Time to shake out

 

[Karsal]

I've a small nuc with a queen that hatched just over three weeks ago. She was very small also, not much bigger than a worker and I was lucky to find her. I have left the nuc alone until this weekend. Three full weeks.
I found her straight away and she has grown in size and was easy to spot. However there are no eggs or larvae. Her pheremones may be stopping the workers laying I presume.
Not sure if she has mated but will leave for another week before I take action.
I think you need to leave her alone undisturbed for a couple of weeks.
I was told by my mentor to be patient and not to rush things.

 

[Heather]

Sensible mentor. Worst thing for bees is an impatient bee keeper.

 

[Finman]

.
I am sure that outer appearance does not differ from normal worker.

Researchers open the workers and look how much their ovipariums are swollen.
Yes, is it swollen by honey or by ovarium.

.

 

[Torq]

Ya see the thing is there are not enough bees in the apidea to support it so if she is a queen I need to get more bees in and if she's not then I'll peg them out on the ground. I just don't want to waste time on something worth doing.

 

[Finman]

I've a small nuc with a queen that hatched just over three weeks ago. She was very small also, not much bigger than....
Not sure if she has mated but will leave for another week before I take action..

When it is worker size, be very impatient and order at once a new laying queen that you get winterbees to your hive. It does not become better after a week.

When a small nuc rears an emergency queen, it is often very small. Head and thorax are small like worker's

 

[itma]

Laying workers exist in all honeybee colonies.
They look exactly like the other workers.

In queenright colonies, their eggs are removed by other workers. Hence drones are rarely produced from workers when Q is present.
This egg-removal is called "worker policing". Look it up!

 

[itma]

Ya see the thing is there are not enough bees in the apidea to support it so if she is a queen I need to get more bees in and if she's not then I'll peg them out on the ground. I just don't want to waste time on something worth doing.

Shake out.

 

[Michael Palmer]

I've seen workers laying eggs. One of the funniest things you will ever see in a colony of bees. She tries so hard to get her butt down into that cell. Trouble is, her wings get stuck on the outside of the cell. She looks like someone who has fallen into a narrow hole, and caught themselves by their elbows.

Here's a question. Recently on Beesource, a poster claims that there are thousands of laying workers in a LW colony, and dozens of eggs per cell. I've looked at many LW colonies in my career, and I've never seen dozens of eggs per cell.

Also, if there really are thousands of workers laying eggs, wouldn't seeing them doing their work be a common event? I've seen it only twice in more than 40 years of keeping bees.

 

[Finman]

.
University of Sheffield has revieled the secret in its studies about "policing in honey bee colonies". Sometimes quite big pergentage of bees have swollen ovaries and if the hive has 50 000 bees. 10% is 5000 bees.

But no need to count records in this issue.
.

 

[Teemore]

I have seen numerous laying workers in Q+ hives - I have never seen one laying in a cell, rather I have seen workers with an egg emerging from their abdomen. These eggs have invariably fallen onto the comb the workers were on and on a few occasions I have seen other workers pick these eggs up but have no idea what happened after that.