if you have a drone layer and....

[Kathyp]

you add brood to the queenless hive.  will they make a queen and take care of the laying worker?  i got into my queenless hive and found empty queen cells and drone cells.  no brood.  i may have a virgin queen, or one that has not started laying well, or no queen.

i took 2 brood frames (again) from the strongest hive and gave it to this hive.  i swapped with a frame of honey and the frame with drone cells.  don't know if that was a good thing to do...i had brushed off the bees. there were not a huge number of drone cells, but about 1/3 of frame on one side and less on the other. didn't think much about it at the time, but as usual am second guessing that choice  :-)

[Robo]

Where there any signs of them trying to make queen cells from the drone eggs?   That is a good sign that they aren't happy with their current situation and will make queen cells from the eggs you just gave them.   If they don't make queen cells from the eggs, either they have a virgin queen, the eggs are too old,  or they are happy with the drone layer they have.  I would keep an eye on them and see what they do with the eggs.  You may have to add eggs a few more times before they come around.

[Kathyp]

there were open queen cell on the same frame as the drone cells.  this frame had been a frame of brood that i had added quite a bit back hoping they'd make a queen.  i never thought about them making queen cells from drone cells  :-(.

the brood on this frame should have emerged long ago, so i'm pretty sure the drone cells are fairly new.

i will watch.  it's getting late and if i don't get good queen cells this time around, i'll have to shake out the whole hive and try requeening.

one good sign....they are coming in stuffed with pollen!

[doak]

If you have a laying worker, and if they are still making queen cells, they are trying to superceed.
Take out "ALL" the brood/eggs from that hive and any you have added.
Then take a frame from one of your best "QueenRight" colonies and some honey/polen frames and what ever frames you can use to fill the space.
They will have fertile eggs to build supercedure cells from.

If you don't get them strait in two or three wks, combine with another strong colony.
It is said not to combine two week colonies, you just end up with one big week colony.
This is called taking your possitive losses in the fall. Then come spring, split and get it back.
doak

[Kathyp]

in anticipation of this not working, i split my crappy hive.  if i get a new queen going and she looks good, i'll combine this small split with the other hive. 

after reading MBs page on drone layers, i'm not sure this will work.  if i still see signs of a laying worker, i'll shake them all out before combining with the newly queened split.

of course.....i could end up with a queenless split and a queenless hive....ain't bees fun??  :-)

[Scadsobees]

Sometimes LW hives will try to raise drag-queens from drones.  It don't work.  You should see queen raising activity soon if they are queenless.

Rick

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

[Kathyp]

thanks michael.  i read what was on your site.  i will refer to it again if i don't have success soon.