Have I got laying workers?

[Rob55]

A hive of mine lost its queen around 3rd week July, I introduced a mated queen at the end of July which was killed so I assumed there must be a virgin in the hive, no eggs all through August and up to last inspection, just done an inspection today and found a small patch of brood in the middle of one frame about the size of a pancake, with larvae in the middle and eggs around the outside, now I noticed some of the cells had 2 eggs, is this a sure sign of laying workers or just a dodgy queen? I would say in total I probably spotted half a dozen cells but there could well be more as it was hard to see through the bees. The bees themselves were pretty aggressive but I wasn't sure if that was the windy weather. There were bees covering about 6 frames.

I have a mated queen sitting here in a cage, is there anything I can do with her? My other hive is strong with 6 frames of brood in all stages and bees covering about 9 frames in total. Is there any way of starting a nuc with the queen I have or saving the other colony?

 

[masterBK]

Some queens when they first start laying put more than one egg in a cell. However you won't have to wait long because if that queen is unmated or you have laying workers all the cappings will be dome shaped indicating the cells contains drones. In the meantime take a nuke off the other colony and introduce your caged queen to that. Interestingly after treating my colonies with MAQS I noticed a week later that when the queens had started laying again after their short "break" several cells had more than one egg in. them

 

[Travelator]

From the description it sounds more like a new queen than laying workers to me. With laying workers, I'd expect a patch of brood no bigger than the lid of a honey jar.

I think MasterBK's advice is excellent.

 

[masterBK]

Called to examine a colony this week by one of our members. It had laying workers and had large patches of drone brood on both sides of four combs with several eggs and larvae in most cells and some cells had both larvae and eggs in them with lots of chalk and abandoned drone brood in worker cells.

 

[BeeJayBee]

From the description it sounds more like a new queen than laying workers to me.

Had exactly the same with one new queen this year. All worker brood.

The only thing you can do is wait until the brood is capped, then you'll know whether the queen is laying worker or drone brood. If the latter you will need to take action.

 

[Rob55]

UPDATE: Inspected today and the small patch of brood is all drone

Chances of getting a mated queen now are slim enough around these parts. There are about 7 frames of bees with some stores on each frame.

Any ideas where to go from here?

 

[oliver90owner]

Remove the queen, pop in a frame of eggs and young brood, and pray. If a queen becomes available, you will have a bonus. Some law states that a queen only becomes available after you have a virgin running around in there. If they draw Q/cells, make sure it is from a very young larva or an egg. Better queen if you have t be lucky and more time to source a queen.

 

[drstitson]

"With laying workers, I'd expect a patch of brood no bigger than the lid of a honey jar. "

he's from northern ireland. a pancake to him will be like those you get in Macdonalds at breakfast time. So about the size of a honey jar lid!!!

Not a nice big thin crepe.

 

[Rob55]

Well this evening I moved the hive about 50 feet away and set a nuc on the original position. I then removed 6 frames from the hive, shook the bees off and put them into the nuc. It was quite a mess but hopefully the school of thought is that the drone layer (s) will be left in the old hive and only the flying bees will return to the nuc. Now on the hunt for a mated queen. Weather to be awful come sunday....

"With laying workers, I'd expect a patch of brood no bigger than the lid of a honey jar. "

he's from northern ireland. a pancake to him will be like those you get in Macdonalds at breakfast time. So about the size of a honey jar lid!!!

Not a nice big thin crepe.

Yes you are correct - a pancake is about 6" diameter not a french Crepe!!

 

[oliver90owner]

A flawed expectation. If Q- since early July they will all be flyers by now.

Oops, noticed back in post #1 you have a queen waiting to introduce. If you shook off a drone laying queen she will return to the spot she knew if she actually flew on a useless mating fight.

If you have a queen in the hive you must find and destroy or your new queen will likely be toast.

 

[Rob55]

I was lead to believe she would not fly... theres another fine plan damned... incidentally I gave away the mated queen I had last week as I wanted to wait to see if the brood was capped worker or drone, I didn't want to leave her in the cage for a week.

 

[Rob55]

Well yesterday I opened up the nuc and the bees inside went absolutely CRAZY, streaming out the top and covering me. So I think it's fair to say they know they are hopelessly queenless.

I have a mated queen sitting here to introduce, but I am really not very optimistic they will accept her.

If they kill her, do I kill them?

 

[drstitson]

"A flawed expectation. If Q- since early July they will all be flyers by now"

sure but he has not shaken them out - presumably the laying workers are happy to stick on the comb, laying. whilst true foragers will return to base.

i've just had a friend do the same - foragers tempted back home to a new box and queen introduced; laying workers left in moved dwindling original hive. to be shaken out once queen established.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Did I read on here that fliers will revert to domestic duties if needed? Must happen in a swarm anyway.

 

[Arfermo]

A flawed expectation. If Q- since early July they will all be flyers by now.
If you shook off a drone laying queen she will return to the spot she knew if she actually flew on a useless mating fight.QUOTE]

Hence the desirability of wing clipping so she can't go anywhere!!!!!

 

[beeno]

Did I read on here that fliers will revert to domestic duties if needed? Must happen in a swarm anyway.

Hi,
Yes, you did (don't ask me where) and they do. Mine unfortunately raised a scrub queen, but she seems fine for the time being.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Did I read on here that fliers will revert to domestic duties if needed? Must happen in a swarm anyway.

Yes they will - actually swarms will have a large proportion of younger bees in (usually 7-10 days old) which you wouldn't normally class as 'flyers' (bees can fly from the age of 3 days old, it's just that they don't choose to! the problem the older flying bees have when they revert to nursing duties is that these glands have reduced in size and atrophied so even though they can produce brood food they are much less effective:

'These glands are made up of a number of secretory cells clustered around a central canal. When the honey bee is young, in the first few weeks of its life, these cells are round and plump and produce brood food, a form of bee milk which is used to feed bee larvae. As the bee gets older and becomes a forager at about three weeks old, these cells become smaller and much reduced in size. The hypopharyngeal glands have now switched from producing brood food to producing invertase, which as the name suggests inverts sugars. However if necessary for the needs of the colony the worker bee can switch back to producing bee food from these glands.'

The same can be said for the wax glands, as the bees get older wax making duties are passed on to the youngsters for the older bees to concentrate on foraging thus there is less need for the wax glands resulting in them atrophying.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Did I read on here that fliers will revert to domestic duties if needed? Must happen in a swarm anyway.

That's certainly true. Look how quickly an AS can draw out a whole box.
Most of them will be fliers.

 

[oliver90owner]

Let's get the mis-readers straightened out a tad. Bees are flyers from about day four after emergence. They will fly sufficiently to know the immediate local terrain after a couple of attempts, I would think. Clearly house bees older than about four days are flyers.

However flyers is not the same as foragers!

A rather too subtle difference for some to differentiate between, it seems? Or simply a case of not reading the post properly and just how it was written?

 

[beeno]

Let's get the mis-readers straightened out a tad. Bees are flyers from about day four after emergence. They will fly sufficiently to know the immediate local terrain after a couple of attempts, I would think. Clearly house bees older than about four days are flyers.

However flyers is not the same as foragers!

A rather too subtle difference for some to differentiate between, it seems? Or simply a case of not reading the post properly and just how it was written?

IMHO flyers=foragers in the OP. Reading between the lines it is called!