Queen laying single, double and multiple in cells/Question?

[annette]

OK this hive was 2 swarms I caught last month and combined. They have been going down hill ever since and in fact last week I looked really carefully and never saw an egg anywhere.  Well today, mostly single eggs in bottom of cell, but occasionally doubles.  On one frame some singles, but found one cell with multiple eggs.

First I thought Laying worker hive, but there she was, the queen and they were paying attention to her. I killed her because I want to  combine this hive with my friend Shawna's hive that is smallish, but doing well.

So my question is:

Shawna is coming up tonight and taking this hive to combine tomorrow morning with her hive. Do you think this is a safe period of time (newspaper between, of course).

Do you think there is the possibility that I had some laying workers in there, as well?  Or just a new queen??  Is it safe to combine if there was a laying worker syndrome going on as well? Can there be laying workers in a hive with the queen when it is  such a small hive (only 1 medium super) I know that a large, strong hive can have laying workers at any given time because the queen pheromone might not get to the whole hive.

Let me know soon, because I told her to come up tonight to take this hive and I don't want to put her good hive in jeopardy.

Thanks
Annette

[Jim134]

 Put the boxes like this            
 

    Top
    Queen right box
    newspaper between box
     laying workers /Queen less
    Bottom board

Hope this will help you out


               BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

[Meadlover]

From what I have read on here yes, you can have a hive with a laying queen and laying workers at the same time.

I had a hive with a laying worker earlier in the year, and tried adding frames of brood to no avail, so combined it with another nuc. The laying worker hive then without delay killed the queen  :'( . I tried several times more to give them a frame of brood to raise a queen to no avail, but then about 2 months later there was a queen..........weird - I did thorough frame by frame inspections and never saw a queen cell. Not sure what happened with that hive but it's good now.

Maybe you had a worker starting to lay because of the lack of brood pheromones. Hopefully since they had a queen the hive pheromones were good and the worker will stop laying (if that is in fact the case).

Good luck with it Annette

ML

[Meadlover]

Found it - "There are always multiple laying workers even in a queenright hive"
from www.bushfarms.com of course.....

[annette]

Thanks for the responses. I will be combining this hive tomorrow with my friend Shawna's hive. I feel good about it now.
Sincerely
Annette