Laying worker. she's a beauty

[Psparr]

Well I made a split 2 months ago with swarm cells from another hive. All seemed well. Now they have a laying worker and boy does she command an audience! Here's a video I made.  http://youtu.be/7sl5Az5h9z4

[iddee]

UNBELIEVABLE.......

THANKS FOR POSTING.

[Kathyp]

Iddee?  maybe a longer comment??  whats up with that?

[marktrl]

I'd smash her with the hive tool then give them a frame of open brood with eggs from another hive. They might make some queen cells.

[iddee]

I think he got a one-in-a-million video there. It is something i have never seen or heard described. It is just a fantastic shot.

marktrl, there is never just one laying worker. There are many. Smashing one will not help.

[Kathyp]

Thanks.  Iddee.  If you have not seen it before it must be rare

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[Psparr]

Wow! Didn't realize I caught such a gem.

Just as an experiment I might let them go. I'm guessing I should keep an eye out for wax moth damage, but any concerns for my other hives if I do?

[MsCarol]

Fantastic video!

OK dumb question time,

I know many beeks "pickle" the old/bad queens to use as a lure for swarm trapping.

Has anyone tried to use that queen pheromone to "shut down" a laying worker???

For all I know it might not be the same one.......thus the question.

[Kathyp]

i think it's a great question, but i don't know the answer.

[rober]

I put all of my retired queens in the same jar of alcohol. so far I've not noticed any reaction from the bees when they're exposed to the tincture.

[Diogenes]

@mscarol.

I thought about it. I had some of the pseudo-queen tubes, but then upon reflection I decided to stick with the frames of eggs.

If you gave a laying worker hive a pseudo-queen tube, they "might" think they have a good queen, and not be too concerned about superceding those laying workers....

On the other hand, if one accidentally leaves a old pseudo-queen tube in a swarm trap, it accumulates a crowd of "drifters". I couldn't figure-out why there was a small cluster in the empty Nuc. Doh....

8-)

[annette]

I am amazed by this video as I never thought they actually surround the bee that lays. But of course, there are other layers in the hive as well. I wonder if they surround them also?

[RHBee]

After watching this amazing video,  I have to ask how do we know that there are multiple laying workers in a hive that goes that way. It appears to me that the colony has accepted this female as their queen. Just wondering.

[Better.to.Bee.than.not]

There is a difference. This bee is a laying worker. they may think it is a queen, but there is no way to know really how developed it is as one. it is only partially developed probably. actually definitely if it is laying only unfertile eggs (drones) A queen is a regular bee of course that has been fed the rich royal jelly and thus develops. Even in what we consider full queens some develop more completely than others, I believe that is part of why there are good queens and bad queens. furthermore they continue developing and are continuously fed more royal jelly. Throughout it's life the queen releases different pheromones. the QRP and QMP for instance, Queen Mandible pheromone for instance suppresses other bees ovaries from developing, it also is believed to suppress swarming, and hive order...so this bee may or may not have developed the ability to create that, Queen Retinue Pheromone is what is believed to gather other bees around the queen...this bee shows it is creating that, but still may not have developed ovaries for creating fertile eggs. There are also other pheromones/etc too, one is put on eggs, and I think that helps the queen not lay two in a cell, etc.

I'd clip this bees leg, then put in a queen cell or two with brood if you wanted to save the hive, if not, it doesn't matter really. but all this is also dependent on time too. A real developed queen once she arrives on scene with her pheromones will queen right the hive if it isn't to far gone. I think the problem is with a partially developed queen these bees may be getting the pheromones that tell them everything is ok...when it clearly is not. But they will replace a injured queen/fake.

[OldMech]

That is quite an amazing video!  Impressive!

   Like Iddee said, there is more than one laying worker.   A laying worker can produce one to two eggs per day at the most. In order to get three, five, or more eggs per cell in multiple cells, you will have multiple workers laying eggs in those cells.  I have read of success in repressing laying workers using frames of brood... One frame the first week, a second frame the next week, and possibly a third frame the third week before introducing a queen / queen cell, or allowing them to build their own queen from eggs/larvae.
   Is it worth the time and effort?  If you only have a few hives it may be. If you have more than a few it probably is not. Shake them out and do a split to replace them later...
    Great video!!

[BeeMaster2]

Fantastic video!

OK dumb question time,

I know many beeks "pickle" the old/bad queens to use as a lure for swarm trapping.

Has anyone tried to use that queen pheromone to "shut down" a laying worker???

For all I know it might not be the same one.......thus the question.

I have a jar of virgin queens, in a jar of alcohol, from a frame of emergency q cells that I was given and I put them in an incubator to hatch.
I was trying to see if i could keep them alive with out bees to feed them. Not.
I put them in swarm traps (still saturated with alcohol) within 30 minutes they have drones all over them. Bees are also very heavy checking them out.
Jim

[BeeMaster2]

Psparr,
That is the first video or picture that I have seen of a laying worker. I did not know that they treated it like a queen. Makes you wonder if we can actually have multiple laying workers.
Jim

[KD4MOJ]

I wish my queens were treated like that! Pretty cool video!

...DOUG
KD4MOJ

[Psparr]

I thought about trying to save it but theres about 70% drone cells. And I don't have any drawn comb to swap it with. I have two other hives. An overwintered boomer and a split I made from that that is now two deeps.

We have a good fall flow around here so I may pull five frames from my boomer and see if they can start over.

I'll keep you posted.

[Michael Bush]

http://bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm#multiple

"Anarchistic bees" are ever present but usually in small enough numbers to not cause a problem and are simply policed by the workers UNLESS they need drones. The number is always small as long as ovary development is suppressed.

See page 9 of "The Wisdom of the Hive"

    "Although worker honey bees cannot mate, they do possess ovaries and can produce viable eggs; hence they do have the potential to have male offspring (in bees and other Hymenoptera, fertilized eggs produce females while unfertilized eggs produce males). It is now clear, however, that this potential is exceedingly rarely realized as long as a colony contains a queen (in queenless colonies, workers eventually lay large numbers of male eggs; see the review in Page and Erickson 1988). One supporting piece of evidence comes from studies of worker ovary development in queenright colonies, which have consistently revealed extremely low levels of development. All studies to date report far fewer than 1 % of workers have ovaries developed sufficiently to lay eggs (reviewed in Ratnieks 1993; see also Visscher 1995a). For example, Ratnieks dissected 10,634 worker bees from 21 colonies and found that only 7 had moderately developed egg (half the size of a completed egg) and that just one had a fully developed egg in her body."

If you do the math, in a normal booming queenright hive of 100,000 bees that's 70 laying workers. In a laying worker hive it's much higher.