Laying workers

[Tom Bick]

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

Well a two frame nuc is hardly a nuc in my opinion perhaps early in the season it would have a chance of building up to a nuc come the end of the season but right now in my opinion it should be considered as a spare queen. On its own right now it will have virtually no chance of winter survival although someone will have a story of an even smaller nuc surviving.

You have to deal with your laying worker hive and this two frame nuc sometimes it comes down to a bit of a gamble that works or fails. Sorry but you have to make the call. I can think of other options but may only confuse the situation.

 

[pargyle]

Revision to advice

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.

I saw a fellow beekeeper with drone laying workers in one of his hives do a newspaper combine with another queenright hive (albeit both were National brood boxes)... the two colonies were more or less the same size but one had superceded and he thought the queen had not returned from her mating flight, DLW's had taken over and caught him a bit by surprise. The combining procedure was successful, within a few days all was well and the existing queen was fine, he never mentioned any potential risks.

Before posting, I also looked up in Hooper who appears to suggest that, late in the season, a laying queen can be introduced 'with some chance of success'. Hence my advice. Although Hooper also mentions the fears you had about the introduced bees killing the good queen.

However, having listened to some other posts in this thread and re-read Hooper and looked it up in Cramp (although I would normally take Hooper's advice) I think that the newspaper combine and/or the queen cage methods are a risk.

I would go with the people who have recommended a shake out as it appears to have a greater chance of success.

I should have followed my own advice and not blindly followed someone experienced who appeared to know what they were doing and got lucky !!

Sorry ...

 

[pargyle]

Well a two frame nuc is hardly a nuc in my opinion perhaps early in the season it would have a chance of building up to a nuc come the end of the season but right now in my opinion it should be considered as a spare queen. On its own right now it will have virtually no chance of winter survival although someone will have a story of an even smaller nuc surviving.

You have to deal with your laying worker hive and this two frame nuc sometimes it comes down to a bit of a gamble that works or fails. Sorry but you have to make the call. I can think of other options but may only confuse the situation.

Ahhh .... a 2 frame Nuc ? I didn't see this post as I was writing the last one, retracting my previous advice.

A 2 frame nuc is probably not strong enough to cope with any influx of laying workers so you are going to have some problems.

David Cramp suggests that tipping the DLW hive out at least 200 yards away could well bleed off the laying workers ... the theory is that the flying bees will know the area and will find their way back to the hive that is on the spot where they came from - the DLW's will not know their way back and will, hopefully, get lost and perish. You must empty the hive of any bees, take all the fframes out. If you then return the hive back to it's original location and put a frame of normal brood in there with any frames of stores the flying worker bees will return to it. Don't put any frames with drone cells back in the hive. If you can then introduce a new laying/mated queen into this hive you have some chance of saving the colony.

Perhaps, as the Nuc is so small, you would consider using the queen out of the Nuc as the queen to introduce ? You would then need to shake out the Nucleus and hope that these bees beg their way into the other hive.

It's a bit of a complicated situation .... perhaps someone with a bit more experience would like to comment.

 

[sharonh]

Ahhh .... a 2 frame Nuc ? I didn't see this post as I was writing the last one, retracting my previous advice.

A 2 frame nuc is probably not strong enough to cope with any influx of laying workers so you are going to have some problems.

David Cramp suggests that tipping the DLW hive out at least 200 yards away could well bleed off the laying workers ... the theory is that the flying bees will know the area and will find their way back to the hive that is on the spot where they came from - the DLW's will not know their way back and will, hopefully, get lost and perish. You must empty the hive of any bees, take all the fframes out. If you then return the hive back to it's original location and put a frame of normal brood in there with any frames of stores the flying worker bees will return to it. Don't put any frames with drone cells back in the hive. If you can then introduce a new laying/mated queen into this hive you have some chance of saving the colony.

Perhaps, as the Nuc is so small, you would consider using the queen out of the Nuc as the queen to introduce ? You would then need to shake out the Nucleus and hope that these bees beg their way into the other hive.

It's a bit of a complicated situation .... perhaps someone with a bit more experience would like to comment.

Thanks Pargyle , the hive with the DLW is situated about ten foot away from the nuc. The nuc sits besides another hive on a long stand. I thought by dumping out the bees from the DLW hive, that they would beg to get into the nuc and hive beside it, spreading the bees between the two. Would this still pose a threat to the nuc?

 

[sharonh]

Well a two frame nuc is hardly a nuc in my opinion perhaps early in the season it would have a chance of building up to a nuc come the end of the season but right now in my opinion it should be considered as a spare queen. On its own right now it will have virtually no chance of winter survival although someone will have a story of an even smaller nuc surviving.

You have to deal with your laying worker hive and this two frame nuc sometimes it comes down to a bit of a gamble that works or fails. Sorry but you have to make the call. I can think of other options but may only confuse the situation.

Thanks Tom, I know I have to make the call, it's a hard one I'm afraid, but have to do something soon

 

[pargyle]

Thanks Pargyle , the hive with the DLW is situated about ten foot away from the nuc. The nuc sits besides another hive on a long stand. I thought by dumping out the bees from the DLW hive, that they would beg to get into the nuc and hive beside it, spreading the bees between the two. Would this still pose a threat to the nuc?

I.think it's too close ... What you need to do is lose the laying workers. ... It seems like you have to dump them at least 200 yards away to stand a chance. So you have 2 hives and a nuc.... What is the colony in the hive without the
DLW like ? Strong ? Well established. ? Queen right. ?

If so have you anywhere that you could move the nuc to that's more than 3 miles away ? If you move the nuc away then tip your DLW out as far away from their original location as you can ( less than 3 miles of course) the the flying bees which you want should come back to their original location and will beg their way into the other hive if they have nowhere else to go.

It all depends upon what you want to achieve ....my earlier post did not take into account another hive as well as the nuc .... Complicates the situation further ...

 

[richardbees]

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

Yes Tom, you're right......my mistake.

My main point was that all the bees from the 'Laying Worker' colony should have to go in through the entrance past the guard bees.

You'll obviously lose a lot of young bees that's an unavoidable cost in ensuring a viable colony..

 

[sharonh]

I.think it's too close ... What you need to do is lose the laying workers. ... It seems like you have to dump them at least 200 yards away to stand a chance. So you have 2 hives and a nuc.... What is the colony in the hive without the
DLW like ? Strong ? Well established. ? Queen right. ?

If so have you anywhere that you could move the nuc to that's more than 3 miles away ? If you move the nuc away then tip your DLW out as far away from their original location as you can ( less than 3 miles of course) the the flying bees which you want should come back to their original location and will beg their way into the other hive if they have nowhere else to go.

It all depends upon what you want to achieve ....my earlier post did not take into account another hive as well as the nuc .... Complicates the situation further ...

Sorry Pargyle , was up to my eyes since. Yes the hive beside the nuc is strong and queen right . It is close to the nuc on the same stand. The DLW are on their own stand about ten foot away from them. Haven't done anything yet, as need my other half to give me a hand in lifting. It's so late in the year now so best just to dump them out and let them beg. It's the nuc as I said I was concerned about but decided first to move them into a BB as suggested. They wouldn't kill the queen in the nuc after begging to get in?

 

[Finman]

.
My experinence is that ,laying worker hives does not need any special treatment.

If I have a new queen, I take old queen from some hive and give it to the worker layer. Nothing has happened ever.

Then I give a new queen to the queenless hive.

 

[pargyle]

Well that's an interesting post from Finman ... he's taken it right back almost to where the thread started !

 

[Finman]

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. .

That is an old saga about laying worker. It has nothing to do with reality.

.

 

[Finman]

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.

.

Thatis the way it goes.

Laying workers arise in "desparately queeless" hive. They can be hindreds or even tghousands.

When the hive get young larvae, the colony is any more desperate. It mcan rear real queen cellsd and the colony calms down.

So, the hive becomes normal. Queeless hive which has queen cells, is very common and normal- That happens for exaple durin swarming.

 

[Finman]

Could that happen?

Every time, when you give a queen a foreign hive, the queen is in danger.
In late summer the danger is much more bigger than during good flow.

During winter feeding intalling queen is easy, but before feeding it is sometimes impossible.

But when a hive cap emergency cells, tyhey easily accept a new queen. But take care that they destroy the emercengy cells.

A hive accepts much more easier a queen which has layed 4 weeks than a queen, whic has just started aying.

There are much variation in this things and basic fault is not working layer.

 

[Finman]

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

This all is old saga thing. Forget it allready.
Even if you move hives and you shake them. there are still hundreds of lying workers-

.

.

 

[Finman]

my grandfather

I am not sure if it's that the DLW cant fly

Old story again.

.University of Sheffield revield this about 10 years ago. It has nothong to do with fathers' knowledge.

 

[oliver90owner]

Finsky, yours are 5 of the last six on this thread. You just trying to post as often as possible? Gets tiresome to keep reading bits added on a second and third and fourth and fifth posts. Any chance of condensing your posts to a sensible number?

 

[Finman]

.
This "push in cage" is very usefull allways when you combine hives ion late summer. Bees acuustome to each other and the queen is in safe. It lays under cage and deliver its parfumes.

Just now I combined 4 hives fioragers to a small nuc. Bees did not kill each other but they attacked on laying queen. I kept 2 days the queen under cage, and after that they did not reacted to the queen.

Before that I gove an ectracted honey frane to the nuc that bees can fill they stomach with honey. I sprayed first water mist over comb.

During few days I have set several queens into hives. They accept old queens much more better that young ones.

 

[Finman]

Finsky, yours are 5 of the last six on this thread. You just trying to post as often as possible? Gets tiresome to keep reading bits added on a second and third and fourth and fifth posts. Any chance of condensing your posts to a sensible number?

Yes Oliver, you are allways rigth and I am allways wrong.

No matter what we are talking about.

.Draw from that, you wise guy.

Most of these answers are wrong. You have not noticed that, have you?

I have explained all the time the result of Sheffield University, but it has no meaning. Why Oliver, why?[

It is your own original research in UK. Why it has no meaning to English beekeepers? But you are allways opening your vast mouth to every direction. Medication Oliver, medication!

/B]

.

 

[sharonh]

Every time, when you give a queen a foreign hive, the queen is in danger.
In late summer the danger is much more bigger than during good flow.

During winter feeding intalling queen is easy, but before feeding it is sometimes impossible.

But when a hive cap emergency cells, tyhey easily accept a new queen. But take care that they destroy the emercengy cells.

A hive accepts much more easier a queen which has layed 4 weeks than a queen, whic has just started aying.

There are much variation in this things and basic fault is not working layer.

Thanks Finman for all the info. What I mean is , I just wanted to rehome the nuc in a new BB,.on their original spot. With the extra space, they would have move room ,before I shake out the DLW hive, infront of it and the queen right hive that are housed on the one stand. The DLW hive will then be able to beg into both the Q right hive and Q right nuc in BB. There should be no risk doing it this way surely , or should I leave the nuc alone and forget the new BBox before the the shake out of the DLW hive.

 

[pargyle]

Thatis the way it goes.

Laying workers arise in "desparately queeless" hive. They can be hindreds or even tghousands.

When the hive get young larvae, the colony is any more desperate. It mcan rear real queen cellsd and the colony calms down.

So, the hive becomes normal. Queeless hive which has queen cells, is very common and normal- That happens for exaple durin swarming.

Finman, you read one of my posts and agreed with it ... I am seriously humbled - unfortunately, just about everyone since my post has said that I was wrong ! Even I thought I was wrong after reading Hooper and Cramp again !!