will queen cells stop laying workersd?

[dogdrs]

I have been trying to correct a laying worker hive by adding brood frames every week for the past four weeks.  Each week I check and there are a lot more workers but no queen cells or queen found.  I'm due to check again to see if they have started any queen cells, but I'm pretty skeptical at this point.  I have an opportunity to get a frame of brood with several capped queen cells from a trap out I'm helping with and was wondering if adding that frame might work.  I know only another queen will sting a queen cell but what will happen when the queen(s) emerge?  I'm not comfortable taking any more frames from my one strong hive and thought this may work.

[Kathyp]

can't hurt to try.  go for it, and let us know if it works.

[Scadsobees]

Yes, it can and does work, it worked for me.  I sprayed several queen cells with scented syrup (honey b healthy) and popped them in.

The trouble is is that you can't tell for around 3 weeks if it worked, and if it didn't work the hive is toast.   

After 3 weeks in my case I thought that it hadn't worked, so I started dumping the bees out before I realized that there was real worker brood and that it had worked, and I think I found the queen and put her back, but they superceded her at that point.  So that hive did recover but I had knocked them back an additional 4 weeks in that case  :'(.

So yes, it can work.

Rick

[Michael Bush]

Sometimes it works great.  Sometimes it doesn't, but it's worth doing.

[troutstalker2]

I tried it as a last resort this summer, I had no luck. I ended up combining. On the other hand what do you have to lose.

David