Laying workers with an established Queen??

tsm151 · July 12, 2010, 03:56:43 PM

This spring I started two hives with package bees. Both came with marked queens, and have been doing great until just recently. One of my queens is continuing to lay eggs everywhere possible, while the other has seemingly stopped. In my last inspection there was little to no brood, and where I could find eggs, there were one, two, and sometimes three eggs in the bottom center of the cells. The queen was laying great just a week or two ago, and shes still in there. There are no queen cells. Do I have laying workers and a queen who quite on me?? Could she be taking a break?? How do I get her back on the clock?? I have brood from my other hive that I could put in to stimulate, but I'm not sure I want to slow that hive down at this point.

hardwood · July 12, 2010, 05:33:05 PM

Did you find the queen on this inspection? It sounds to me as if she's been superceded and the new queen has yet to hit her stride. I'd give it a week or so and check again.

Scott

Kathyp · July 12, 2010, 05:40:09 PM

could be, and the old queen is not always killed. more than once i have had two queens in a hive. either more than one new queen has been left alive when they planned to supercede, or the old is not killed right away.

BjornBee · July 12, 2010, 06:01:18 PM

Is there ample room for her to lay? Not sure where you are from, but in many places, the flow is starting to dwindle and the bees are really conserving resources by filling in previous brood areas. This conflicts with the queen who may still be trying to lay but is out of open cells. She will just keep making her rounds and laying in cells previously laid.

You should not have laying workers with a queen and worker brood present. Both put off pheromones which inhibit worker ovaries from developing.

skflyfish · July 12, 2010, 10:10:05 PM

This sounds a lot like my laying worker hive of last year.

I found them queen-less (probably roller her myself) and with lots of drone brood, so I tried to introduce a queen. They accepted her but she barely laid any eggs. A few here and there. I would find her roaming on open frames and doing nothing, while the laying worker(s) continued. I ended up shaking all the bees off 100 feet away, put a queen excluder on top and bottom of the single deep I left them with and put a frame of brood, larva and eggs in once a week for three weeks. After 3 weeks I introduced another queen and they built back to 10 deep frames before winter.

On the ground where I shook the bees I found a small ball of bees the next day. Sure enough the dud queen was in it. Feeling sorry, I put her and the small group of bees in a nuc along with a frame of brood. It took her a couple of weeks, but she actually started laying again, and each week laid more. They eventually built back to 3 deep frames of bees.

I newspaper combined them in the fall with the corrected laying worker hive, but did not pinch either queen. They hardly removed any paper during the winter. Both groups survived and this hive is now my strongest hive.

I guess the point I am trying to make is, some queens can be present even with laying workers and that some queens are slow or even duds. Personally I would remove her to a small nuc, put a frame of brood in from the other hive and prepare to introduce another queen. But that is based on my limited experience. There are others here with much more experience with laying workers, than I.

HTH,

Jay

Jim134 · July 12, 2010, 10:44:12 PM

Put in a Location in you'r proflie it will help a lot.

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

Kathyp · July 12, 2010, 11:50:24 PM

Quotesome queens can be present even with laying workers and that some queens are slow or even duds

not sure this would happen if the queen were already in the hive. the fact that she is there, dud or not, should keep the hive from developing laying workers.

a re-examination of the hive to make sure there is room for the queen to lay, and to see if there might be a new queen in there, seems to be in order in this case.

hardwood · July 12, 2010, 11:53:08 PM

Yeah, what Kathy said. :)

Scott

tsm151 · July 13, 2010, 10:24:46 AM

Thanks for all the thoughts. There is plenty of space for her to lay. I'll hold off on doing anything for another week and see what develops. There was a flurry of activity similar to a swarm about a month ago, but the original queen is still there with all the workers. I'll double check for a second queen too. I really appreciate all the advise and experience on this forum!

Kathyp · July 13, 2010, 10:31:20 AM

mating flight??