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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Walter Starks <walterstarks AT icloud.com>
  • To: thrhodes AT hotmail.com
  • Cc: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] Missing queen
  • Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2016 17:39:19 -0500

You won't be able to introduce a new queen. The bees have already accepted
the laying worker as their new queen. IMO the easiest way to solve this
problem is to combine the hive with the laying worker with your queen right
hive. You can always split them later in the season once new queens are
available or they can make their own. The laying workers will die off in a
few weeks.

______

Walter




You never can tell with bees. ~ Winnie-the-Pooh

> On Mar 8, 2016, at 2:30 PM, thrhodes AT hotmail.com wrote:
>
> I checked my three hives at the end of February when we had a couple warm
> days. As expected, one hive was completely dead as evidenced by the
> carnage from robbing out front. One hive looked really good and strong with
> a good brood pattern and sufficient resources. I flipped the brood box to
> the bottom and then looked at the third hive. When I opened up the hive
> and started looking, I immediately knew something was wrong. I have what
> to me looks like a classic laying worker situation. The "brood" is spotty,
> all drone in length, no apparent queen cells, no brood pattern
> characteristic of the good hive, and no queen that I could see. I took
> what frames of honey were left in the dead hive and put it in this one.
> Perhaps throwing good resources at a lost cause, but then I wasn't sure
> since I'd never had this happen before.
>
> Just to be sure, I gave it some time and rechecked today. No change for
> the better and if anything that laying worker has really kicked it up.
> Resources are down, but there are still a good amount of worker bees and
> some resources left.
>
> At this point, what's the best option? In an active laying worker
> situation, would introducing a queen work if I can get one or are they just
> likely to kill it off. I'm leaning toward just taking a frame or two of
> brood from my other hive and seeing if they will draw out some queen cells
> from it and hopefully get queen-right. I could also briefly newspaper
> combine the two hives into one as well and split later, but if there is any
> chance I can save it separately, that would be ideal. Thoughts?
>
> Thanks,
> Haywood
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