I believe I have a laying worker and I'm trying to figure out how to deal with it. I have a different strong hive that I believe I can pull frames from with eggs and larvae to give to the laying worker hive to make a queen. When I pull the frame do I shake all the bees off into the original hive before putting into the laying worker hive? Or does it matter?
Thanks
John
Shake them on the ground away from the hive, and all workers will fly back except for the layer. I hope this is true because I just did this the other day for one of mine then paper combined with a swarm.
Thanks Beenerd. That is the other option I am considering - shaking out the laying worker hive and let the bees assimilate into my other hives, or back into the original hive. I do have a weaker hive - swarm capture I got about a month ago that I could combine with.
But I have read that introducing a frame of eggs and uncapped brood will cause the laying worker to stop laying and the bees will make a new queen. So I was wondering if I use this method if I am supposed to shake the bees from the new frame before introducing into the hive!? Or not. I would guess the answer is to shake the bees off before inserting the frame of eggs and larvae. Hoping someone can answer this one.
Thanks, John
Okay, I went ahead and shook the laying worker hive out in front of another hive. Hoping for the best with this.
There are two and half frames of drone brood capped and uncapped, along with a good amount of uncapped honey and pollen.
Can I insert these frames into another queen right hive? Or do I need to freeze the frames first to kill off the drone larvae? If it is okay to install them into a new hive without freezing first, how soon should/could I do this - is tomorrow okay (I shook the bees today).
thanks for any help!
John
If you want to combine hives and remove the laying worker hive box, you can shake out. If you want to keep the laying worker hive intact, you can add a frame of eggs from another hive. In that case, you can brush/shake off the bees into the original hive to avoid accidentally transferring the queen. Otherwise, just move the entire frame including it's bees.
Here is my opinion on shaking out bees....
http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html (http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html)
Good luck.
Thanks Bjorn and Frameshift.
At this point I have already shaken the bees out. In the bee yard I have 3 strong hives and 1 recent swarm capture hive that has 4 frames of bees and is growing in strength. I shook the bees from LW hive in front of the swarm hive. I did not replace the laying worker hive in its spot. I am hoping the bees will assimilate into the other hives, primarily into the swarm hive.
My question now is, can I place the frames of drone, uncapped honey and pollen into that swarm hive as well?
I appreciate any help in this, and I am very appreciative of this forum...so much useful information and so many very helpful people...thank you!
John
Quote from: BjornBee on June 28, 2011, 09:46:43 PM
Here is my opinion on shaking out bees....
<link snipped out...oh when oh when can I post a link? :) >
Good luck.
Some good reading there for this newb. Thanks.
According to JP, feed the drone brood to the chickens. There is no need to keep it.
You should be able to give the honey/pollen to your bees.
This is according to what I have read in other posts here. I just did this for one of my hives that went LW and I just put the frames out in the yard. The bees from the other hives will rob any hony/pollen off of the comb and hopefully the other bees will assimilate.
Good Luck
Quote from: BjornBee on June 28, 2011, 09:46:43 PM
Here is my opinion on shaking out bees....
http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html (http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html)
Good luck.
There is no real difference between the recommendation of the link.... combine the LW hive with another hive.... and shaking out the LW hive and removing the LW hive box. I both cases the LW bees join another queenright hive. The problem comes if you think you can shake out and the laying workers can't find their way back to the original hive box.
You can place the frames of honey and pollen back into any other hive. Although the bees will rob out the honey if you left the frames out in the yard, they do not rob out the pollen. Better to just place them back into another hive.
Quote from: FRAMEshift on June 29, 2011, 12:00:37 AM
Quote from: BjornBee on June 28, 2011, 09:46:43 PM
Here is my opinion on shaking out bees....
http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html (http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html)
Good luck.
There is no real difference between the recommendation of the link.... combine the LW hive with another hive.... and shaking out the LW hive and removing the LW hive box. I both cases the LW bees join another queenright hive. The problem comes if you think you can shake out and the laying workers can't find their way back to the original hive box.
I think there are HUGE differences.
Lets just skip right past the bumrush and fighting that shaking out bees sometimes causes, and the many dead bees that you see over the next day or two. Let's just discount the slower newspaper combine and the benefits of this technique.
What is the average beekeeper, with a few hives, going to do with a couple extra brood boxes in the middle of summer after shaking the bees off the comb? Comb full of drone and messes up comb? I'll tell you what....many will lose it! Wax moths, nasty deteriorating brood matter, etc., all make the question of someone being told to shake the bees, and the follow up question of "What do I do with the boxes".....a losing suggestion.
Do yourself a favor.....combine with a queeenright hive. Expand the brood chamber. Let the bees assimilate slowly. Let the queen and the brood shut the laying workers down. Then in a few weeks, if you want, you can break apart the expanded brood chamber and get another colony back up and running.
Don't find yourself standing there after shaking out bees, asking yourself "What am I to do with these funked up combs now that I shook all the bees off of them?"
Combine laying worker colonies. Eliminating one problem, and replacing it with another, makes little sense.
But go ahead. Store that nasty brood comb after shaking the bees off. Maybe the best advice would be to save the hassle later and just burn the stuff now. :-D
One technique handles the problem in it's entirety, while giving you splitting options and other benefits. Shaking bees eliminates a laying worker colony, and yet offers little options, and some negative possibilities.
Quote from: BjornBee on June 29, 2011, 07:29:17 AM
What is the average beekeeper, with a few hives, going to do with a couple extra brood boxes in the middle of summer after shaking the bees off the comb? Comb full of drone and messes up comb? I'll tell you what....many will lose it! Wax moths, nasty deteriorating brood matter, etc., all make the question of someone being told to shake the bees, and the follow up question of "What do I do with the boxes".....a losing suggestion.
Glad you pointed that out. The average beekeeper also needs to know that letting wax and brood remnants sit around is a bad idea. A combine all into one queenright hive is one solution to this. And if you only have one queenright hive, that's where the bees are going anyway. Of course, the frames can be re-used in other hives but this should be done before wax moths etc have a chance to damage the comb.
The main difference between a combine and a shakeout would be that in the case of a shakeout you are distributing the bees (and hopefully the frames) over a number of queenright hives while in a combine they are all going to one other hive. Or you could just distribute the frames with bees intact into several queenright hives.... multiple small combines. I have not observed fighting when doing this, but maybe you have.
Thanks again all for the suggestions and your insights. I can definitely see what Bjorn is saying. I shook the bees out later in the day and left the two and a half frames out in the yard. They got robbed out pretty quickly. Fortunately it wasn't enough to create a big frenzy, and I don't think there was much if any hive robbing going on. But I can see how it might have turned badly if there were more frames and more day left to get things goings.
The LW hive was an extra top bar hive designed to take medium frames. The two frames that were the most filled in were foundation frames that I had inserted after catching a swarm about six months ago. They did not make a queen as I had hoped. I was out of Langstroth ware and used the top bar just to put them in for now. And if I had done a newspaper combine it would have been onto a Langstroth deep. So I thought the shakeout might be the most straightforward. However I did have an extra medium that I could have transferred the LW hive into then done the combine. Wish I had thought of that sooner.
I think the shake out combined with the discussion was educational to see benefits and drawbacks of both a shake out and a combine. Next time I think I would shoot for a combine - less messy, easier on the bees, I get the bees into the hive I want them into, thus building up the weak hive, less chance of creating a robbing environment. I just wasn't sure whether the LW hive would kill the queen in a combine but it sounds like with a newspaper combine the risk is low.
Learning everyday and loving it!
John
Quote from: BjornBee on June 28, 2011, 09:46:43 PM
Here is my opinion on shaking out bees....
http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html (http://www.bjornapiaries.com/badbeekeeping.html)
Good luck.
according researches laying workers may be even 20%. That means that they have swollen ovaries.
I have not met difficulties in giving a queen to laying worker hive, but the nuc surely is the best way. Laying worker hive's bees are old and it is better that you join them to another colony. They are in foraging age and perhaps they will do something usefull before they die.
When you give new queen to the hive, there are allways risk that bees handle a new queen rudely.
I have shake once and only time the bees for worker layer but i have have plenty of worker laying hives.
Sheffield University UK revieled the mystery of laying workers 15 years ago. The issue is "policing in the beehive". But those researches have not much affect on folks. A good old hype on worker queen continues. It is so exciting.
I have written tens of times in these forums about Sheffield results but without fortune.
Shake the bees must go for ever!
By the way, why you kill the queen so often. Beekeepers need seemengly shaking.