Drones and Laying Workers

[IndianaBrown]

In another post Scadsobees said

I see some normal, but quite often drone comb in the supers.  I don't use an excluder, and the queen will go up through 3 full supers to lay in drone comb at the top.

I have been wondering if some, most, or even all drone brood in a hive is produced by laying workers rather than the queen. 

Does anyone know if any research has been done on this?

[Apis629]

The queen emits pharamones which inhibit the development of the ovaries of the workers.  Workers have been known to carry eggs up through the excluder to deposit them.  Perhaps this could be a case of that?

[Brian D. Bray]

It is possible to have a laying worker or two in a queen right hive.  Eggs laid above a queen excluder are usually the result of a leaky excluder--one that has bent rods and dings that allow the queen past.  If you are finding only one egg per cell even in the supers with an excluder in place I would venture that the queen is getting past the excluder.  more than one egg in a cell would indicate a laying worker which would mean your queens phenomones are getting weak and will probably be superceded soon.

[IndianaBrown]

It is possible to have a laying worker or two in a queen right hive.

That's more or less what I was wondering, thanks.

more than one egg in a cell would indicate a laying worker which would mean your queens phenomones are getting weak and will probably be superceded soon

I am not having any problems with drone cells outside of the bood chamber myself.  I had some brood in the first super in my 'feral' hive even though there was room in the brood chambers, but that hive tends to work vertically rather than horizontally.  (No excluder for me, you all convinced me.) I have not seen multiple eggs per cell in my hives, but since that sounds like a good indicator of a failing queen I will look closer this year.  Scads' post just got me wondering.

[Finsky]

The queen emits pharamones which inhibit the development of the ovaries of the workers.  Workers have been known to carry eggs up through the excluder to deposit them.  Perhaps this could be a case of that?

Actually this issue have revieled in University of England. It is called bee policing.

Bees have need to raise drones during some period of year. They even broke worker cells and make drone celss if they have not possibilyty to make true their will. But if you keep reasonable gaps for dronecells, it will mostly make them satiefied and they do not make so much drones here and there.  That is why drone area for mites is good to keep drone cells off from other places.

But no one have seen that bees move eggs in order to raise them in another place. It is often told but........
That I understand that worker cell may drop through exluced and survive and bees raise it to queen.

http://www.lasi.group.shef.ac.uk/aps323/ConflictInBeeHive.pdf

Honey bee workers are often referred to as sterile.
They are not. Each possesses two ovaries and can lay
viable eggs if her ovaries are activated. (Almost all the
workers, approximately 99.98%, in a queenright colony
have non-active ovaries which are thread like in
appearance. But the occasional worker has activated
ovaries containing full-sized eggs. In a queenless colony
with laying workers up to approximately 50% of the
workers have activated ovaries.) Because workers cannot
mate they can only lay unfertilized eggs. Due to the
unusual sex-determination mechanism of the
Hymenoptera (sawflies, wasps, bees and ants) these eggs
are male. Thus, the drones reared in the honey bee colony
could, potentially, be the queen’s sons or workers’ sons
because both the workers and the queen can lay male eggs.

This is exactly what we find. Workers do prevent
each other from reproducing. If one worker lays an egg,
that egg will almost certainly be eaten by another worker
within a few hours. I named this mutual prevention of
reproduction by workers “worker policing” and in 1989
my colleague Kirk Visscher and I discovered worker
Worker policing in the honey bee. Top: a worker bee inspects
a worker-laid egg in a drone cell. Bottom: after picking up
the egg in her mandibles, the policing worker kills the egg by
eating it.policing in the honey bee. Basically, we transferred queenlaid
eggs and worker-laid eggs into neighbouring drone
cells and determined what happened. The results were
very clear. The worker-laid eggs were almost all killed
(99%) within one day but the queen-laid eggs were mostly
spared.

[AndersMNelson]

(No excluder for me, you all convinced me.)

What did they say to convince you not to use an excluder?  Should I not use one either?

[IndianaBrown]

Thanks Finsky, great information.  :)

Hmm...

...If one worker in 5,000 or 10,000 is laying eggs at any one time, this would mean that there would be about 2-10 laying workers in a strong colony. If each worker lays 10 eggs per day this could account for a large share of the male production.

But as Finsky quoted, the article implies that almost all of the eggs from laying workers are removed by other workers.  The author stated that during the research the frames were inspected every day, which may or may not have influenced this behavior.  I still wonder what percent of drones in a hive actually come from workers rather than the queen - in a hive that is not disturbed so much.   

What did they say to convince you not to use an excluder?  Should I not use one either?

Anders, that is a WHOLE 'nother kettle o' fish!  :roll:
Try doing a search of the forums for 'queen excluder' or 'honey excluder' as some call them.  Also try 'open brood nest'.  Opinions differ greatly, but from my very limited experience, all I can tell you is that when I tried them the bees were very reluctant to cross them.  There are some limited uses for excluders, but if they have enough room the bees will put the broodnest low enough and the honey high enough that you can harvest brood free honey.

[Michael Bush]

>Should I not use one either?

It's your choice.  I don't.

[Finsky]

First, if you have some drone brood here or there, that is not problem at all. No idea to make "nursing operations" for that sake.

When I have mating nucs and I take queen off, bees become sometimes "mad" and they start to lay tens of eggs in one cell. When I know that it is not problem.

I put frame of worker larvae to the nuc and bees calm down and stop egg laying. They have opportunity to raise new queen.
It is no matter if laying workers are 2 or 25 or 100. It means nothing.

[Finsky]

What did they say to convince you not to use an excluder?  Should I not use one either?

You may use or not. It depends how you use it. I think that it is not convincing question.