I have a couple of packages that I installed this year that appear to be doing great.......except............ lots of brood but it appears to be all drone brood. Nice pattern and lots of frames of brood but it looks like all drone. The boxes are double deeps and packed with bees and honey, lots and lots of drones.
My usual experience with a laying worker hive does not have a solid pattern of brood. I have not seen the queen but I see larva. Is it possible that I have a queen that is now sterile? Do laying worker hives sometimes lay solid patterns? All indicators of these hives look good except the appearance of the brood and the high number of drones.
Comments please.
Steve
where are your pictures :-(
Pictures would be nice.
Quote from: asprince on July 16, 2010, 02:19:58 PM
My usual experience with a laying worker hive does not have a solid pattern of brood.
Drone laying queens are different
Quote from: asprince on July 16, 2010, 02:19:58 PM
Is it possible that I have a queen that is now sterile?
Yes, but that is not what you have. You have a queen putting off lots of offspring, so she is not sterile. Her offspring just happens to be all male. Nothing wrong with males... :-D
Quote from: asprince on July 16, 2010, 02:19:58 PM
Do laying worker hives sometimes lay solid patterns? All indicators of these hives look good except the appearance of the brood and the high number of drones.
Comments please.
Steve
Yes.
I've seen a few drone laying queens that came with packages this year. Doesn't mean that is your problem, but could be.
Could also be they are superceding a drone layer and drones from other hives are waiting for the new queen to make her flight.
Are the hives domed? If they are queen right and I can find her, would it help to replace her?
Steve
[/quote]
Yes, but that is not what you have. You have a queen putting off lots of offspring, so she is not sterile. Her offspring just happens to be all male. Nothing wrong with males... :-D
[/quote]
The bees make drone and worker cells,the queen lays eggs in the cells,the bees make drone ,workers and queens out of the eggs. It has nothing to do with the queen male offspring.
Quote from: asprince on July 16, 2010, 02:19:58 PM
I have a couple of packages that I installed this year that appear to be doing great.......except............ lots of brood but it appears to be all drone brood. Nice pattern and lots of frames of brood but it looks like all drone. The boxes are double deeps and packed with bees and honey, lots and lots of drones.
My usual experience with a laying worker hive does not have a solid pattern of brood. I have not seen the queen but I see larva. Is it possible that I have a queen that is now sterile? Do laying worker hives sometimes lay solid patterns? All indicators of these hives look good except the appearance of the brood and the high number of drones.
Comments please.
Steve
Some colonies make alot more drone then others,two of ours did,no problem.
Quote from: Joelel on July 17, 2010, 04:49:59 PM
Yes, but that is not what you have. You have a queen putting off lots of offspring, so she is not sterile. Her offspring just happens to be all male. Nothing wrong with males... :-D
[/quote]
The bees make drone and worker cells,the queen lays eggs in the cells,the bees make drone ,workers and queens out of the eggs. It has nothing to do with the queen male offspring.
[/quote]
I have no clue what your talking about.
The question was if the queen was sterile. Sterile meaning....unable to reproduce. The queen is able to reproduce....just only males. It was witty, but also correct. Sorry if you missed the point.
As for your comments...the first part is correct. The rest is lost as to what point your trying to make, or suggest I said something worthy of getting your dander up and making the statement in the first place. :idunno:
Sterile may not have been the right word to use, maybe not fertile.
Do I need to requeen?
Steve
If they are in fact drones, then requeening would be the way to go. Find the old queen and pinch her.