I'm a 2nd year newbie and I just had to deal with a laying worker hive. I used one of Michael Bush's solutions in which I consolidated the 3 mediums into 2 and put them atop a strong hive with a double screen in between. After one week I shook the bees at the entrance of the strong hive. I then had the 2 supers to tack back inside and re-use for a split next year.
Question- So now what do I do with the frames that still have capped drone brood in the regular worker cells? About 8 of the 20 frames had this shotgun style pattern brood in them. I tried leaving them out but the ants began to tear into the brood. I then brought them in the basement and I now smell a foul smell. Put them in a freezer? But then what? Help!
Good question....
I'm not sure...my preliminary thoughts are to freeze them just in case there are small hive beetles in it, and then after that put that back on the strong hive and let the bees do the dirty work.
Or leave it for the ants if they were doing a good job.
Or leave it in the freezer till spring.
Even if the comb gets chewed up pretty bad, a split or package can clean it up and put it right fairly quickly. The dead brood has to go, though.
The odor is the dead larvae rotting. You can freeze the frame, and while it is still frozen, take a wire brush and brush the cell cappings off and then use a garden hose to wash out the dead larvae.