East Texas Pine Rooter
07-02-2004, 02:30 PM
If you can't find the queen, and you suspect you have an egg laying worker, what do you do about introducing a new queen?
Michael Bush
07-02-2004, 03:52 PM
First make sure you have a laying worker. Three or four eggs to a cell? No worker brood? Then you probably do have one. Two eggs to a cell and evidence they may have recently raised a queen? I would wait few days and check back.
The decision on what to do about it depends on what all of your resources are.
If I have several hives, I'd shake out the working layer hive a ways from the other hives and give all the comb to other hives. The bees will find their way back to some hive but they have to act subservient to get accepted and the laying worker can't go in all agressive and kill they queen.
Then if you need another hive, do a split from a strong one a few days later.
If you only have ONE hive and it's got a laying worker, then you have a delima. I would put a couple of frames of bees in a box with the new queen and get them to accept her first. Maybe even with a push in cage. Then put the split over a double screen over the hive for three or four days for them to get used to the smell of the queen. Then do a newspaper combine.
This has been the most successful of anything I've tried.
But the simplest and most worry free, is just shake them out and forget it.