Please help! Found egg...

[katringa]

I really need some help. I am not a beekeeper, but have a colony of bees living in my attic. We see them leave the house in a hole facing my backyard. Well just this morning, I saw something that looked kind of strange - a bee with something very very white in colour attached to its body. It flew very fast and dropped the white thing pretty far away from the hive. I ran over to it and I am pretty sure I have found an egg. It's very white and softish. It's pouring rain outside, so I brought it in and put it in this little open box that I kept a moth coccoon in. I don't know what to do, because once it hatches into a larva, it will have to be fed by the workers, won't it? Please help me. Thank you!

ALSO! I was wondering if anyone knows why a bee would drop an egg in any place other than their hive anyways? And in the pouring rain? I'm not sure what type of bees these are, because it's hard to get a close look at them right now, but I sure hope they don't drop any more out in my backyard!

[This message has been edited by katringa (edited September 01, 2004).]

[Scotty]

Well Bees usually take eggs that are defective in some way, and remove them from the hive. So the egg you have, probably won't hatch.

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-Scotty

Weekly progress of my hive(s): http://bees.total-x.org

[MountainCamp]

The odds are it's not an egg, but a larva that is diseased or dead.

It is not uncommon for bees to cleanout dead or diseased larva.

An egg is about the size of a 24 point coma, smaller than a grain of rice.

If it were an egg, it is no longer viable because it needs to be incubated and kept at about 95F.

[katringa]

Oh ok! I'm happy to here that I won't have to worry about it hatching. Thank you so much!

[mobees]

Could be any of debris, bees are very into have a clean environment. Could be anything. I have a few polystyrene nuc boxes. The bees will pickup the styrafoam beeds that break off entrance/vent holes and fly off with it. Sounds like they were taking away a chalkbrood mummy. I have found they some wild bees have alot of chalkbrood. I am sure you could get a beekeeper to remove them. What state do you live in?

[Michael Bush]

An egg is the shape and consistency of a grain of rice but much smaller. It is hard, not soft. A larvae is white and soft and vary from just hatched when it's still the size of an egg, until it reaches almost the size of a bee. It's doubtful you would notice something the size of a bee egg. If it's soft, then it's larvae. If it's hard and large (like almost the size of a bee or half a bee), or it's kind of chaulky, then it's probably a chaulk brood mummy. These are larvae that died from a fungus infection and then dried out.

[beebarf]

If they are honeybees, I wouldnt worry too much about 1 larve hatching. Id be worried about the other 60,000 bees, and the 100 pounds of honey in your attic. Ya might want to get them removed........