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ocba - Re: [ocba] Multiple eggs per cell: laying workers vs overzealous newbie queen

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  • From: Randall Austin <ra41717 AT gmail.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Multiple eggs per cell: laying workers vs overzealous newbie queen
  • Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2015 10:44:55 -0400

Dan,

As Damon Runyon said, "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet." From your description, I'd bet that you are correct with respect to your laying worker problem. You'll know for sure when that uncapped brood is capped (9 days after the egg is laid); ALL of them will be drones.

The first step would be to very carefully go through the hive and try to find a queen. Did you sign up with Dave Eckert during the bee class to get an experienced mentor who could give you a second opinion?

Simply introducing a new queen to a laying worker colony won't work -- the bees think they have a queen so they'll kill the new one. The easiest and probably best thing to do is just combine this colony with your other one. You can split it back into two hives later.

An alternative is the shake-out method: you take the whole hive several hundred yards away and shake/brush the bees off of every frame. Put the now-empty equipment back where it came from and supposedly all but the laying workers will return to the hive. Then you can introduce a queen using the usual routine.

I've done both. The combine method makes the most sense if you have the resources to start over with a new split or new package. With the shake-out method, if you get the hive going again, you are doing so with old bees.

Hope this helps.

Randall Austin

On 4/19/2015 7:34 PM, Daniel Kenan wrote:
CAP37QBHmKVZy3xY0E35+CRWMt3A8zZAjaueBCa1aWQMUOQD62w AT mail.gmail.com" type="cite">
Today is about 2 weeks since installing 2 packages. Hive 1 looks as expected, with lots of wax being drawn out and 1 egg per cell and lots of uncapped brood. Hive 2 shows less activity, less wax being drawn, and has lots of cells with multiple eggs per cell. I assume that I have laying workers, but it seems unlikely that they could have arisen so quickly. There was a viable queen in the original package, and she was released successfully judging by the candy being chewed out. The one week check failed to locate the queen and no eggs noted in any cells. The two week check today shows lots of uncapped brood and multiple eggs per cell. I read that sometimes new queens are overzealous and can lay multiple eggs per cell. How can I reliably identify laying workers in this situation? Do I have to wait until I see drone brood? I'd rather replace the queen as quickly as possible if there is a problem.

Thanks, Dan


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