Queen given to laying workers

[Mountain Bee]

If I shake out a laying worker hive in front of my other hives the bees will just go into those hives. So can I shake out the hive set it back up in the same spot to keep as many foragers as possible and release a laying queen into the hive and not have any trouble

[Oldtimer]

Pretty high risk, at least some laying workers are likely to return to the hive.

better to do the brood for 3 weeks method of giving them a comb with eggs each week till the laying workers are suppressed, you can tell when they are suppressed because the bees will then feel queenless and build queen cells. So once you see queen cells you kill the queen cells and can introduce the new queen.

[Mountain Bee]

that does not make any sense to me. if I did not set the hive back up the bees would all just go into my other hives which contain a laying queen. Whats the difference in that versus setting the hive back up in the same location with a laying queen put in directly from a nuc with a frame from the nuc also. The hive was queenless but the laying workers made them think like they were queenright. They would not know the difference in if they were going into one of my queenright hives or their old laying worker hive and even if they did they thought they were queenright all along. My thoughts would be that I installed a laying queen versus a caged queen.

[Jeff G]

I have taken a full working hive and put it in place of a laying worker hive and shook the bees out in front and they all flue in and life was good. The difference is that the working hive I put in place had worker bees to protect the current queen. If you try what you are talking about the workers will protect the laying worker as their queen, and will reject a foriegn queen. In all likely hood the laying worker will return to the hive becasue she has been out of the hive before in her life and knows the way back. If you shake out in front of other hives and take their hive away you are doing the same thing as in sentence one; the workers will accept the bees and will protect their queen.

[Mountain Bee]

That makes sense but what if one waited long enough for the majority of the bees to disperse into the other hives and then and the queen with two frames of bees from her colony it would look like the queen and her bees would now out number the old bees.

[Oldtimer]

that does not make any sense to me.... They would not know the difference in if they were going into one of my queenright hives or their old laying worker hive and even if they did they thought they were queenright all along.

OK. Well since my answer makes no sense, plus you have already decided what the bees know / don't know / will do, do it the way you wanted.
Highly likely they will kill the queen though, when that happens don't come running to me.

Can't understand your second post but are you saying you will make a two frame nuc using their own queen and combine that with them? if so, that will have a better chance to work, because as per Jeff G, the queen will have a lot of her own bees to protect her. Some risk though, depending on the relative strength of the two colonies.

[Mountain Bee]

Oldtimer what I am trying to say is that if you have a row of 5 hives and one of them is a laying worker you can take the laying worker hive and shake them out in front of the other four hives and that is OK because they will disperse themselves within the other four hives. But what I do not understand is that when you do this shake out why can you not put a hive back in the location of the laying worker hive with a laying queen and some of her bees and the bees that are shaken out of the laying worker hive not just treat that hive just as one of the other four hives that they are going to end up in. from the way this sounds is that if you are going to shake out a laying worker hive than you better not have any weak hives near by because they may be taken over by the laying workers is that right?

[Oldtimer]

You can do that, use their own laying queen of the hive you moved, and chances are reasonably good although not fullproof.

My first post was in response to your first post, where you suggested a method that is unlikely to work.

[Michael Bush]

Most of us who have been keeping bees a long time have tried almost everything to deal with laying workers one time or another. When we say it probably won't work it's not because of how it fits or doesn't fit your model of how you think it works, its because we have tried it and it didn't work...

But if you want a theory as to why it won't work, when you put a hive back on the old stand all the laying workers return. All of the old wives tales about laying workers not being able to find their way home have been thoroughly disproven by studies as well as beekeepers. They will find their way back. The other issue as far as why this isn't the same scenario as those same laying workers finding their way into other hives has to do with how a lost bee responds when going into a strange hive out of desperation compared to how they act when they feel it's their hive. A lost bee enters a hive in a very submissive way. A robber enters in a very aggressive way and a bee who thinks they are in their own hive feels obliged to defend it from any stranger or stranger queen.

Bottom line is the bees don't really care if it makes sense to you...

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

[Jeff G]

Michael, you forgot one thing; even if it does make sence to you it does not always make sence to the bees.LOL

[lcl]

[QUOTE=Michael Bush;798836]Most of us who have been keeping bees a long time have tried almost everything to deal with laying workers one time or another. When we say it probably won't work it's not because of how it fits or doesn't fit your model of how you think it works, its because we have tried it and it didn't work...

Michael,

Does it make a difference if the laying workers just started laying or if they have been at it for a long time? 5 days ago I noticed that one hive was queenless. I got my new queen for this hive and before putting her in I thought I'd double check and look carefully one more time for a queen and/or new eggs. The light conditions were not too good but I noticed eggs on the wall of the cells and there was no queen in the hive. I also saw two eggs (actually 2 and 1/2 eggs) in a queen cell cup... Will requeening at an early stage (4-5 days) of LW work? Or do you still recommend following the 3 week open brood frame strategy regardless of how long the workers have been laying? I dropped the new queen cage in last night but I could take her out before they get to her... I also need to mention that this is the strongest hive I got in my apiary...

Thanks,

[Mountain Bee]

So if I do what I explained in my forth post to oldtimer how long will the queen survive in the hive before they kill her?

[Scottsman]

For my humble edification, where is this queen and brood coming from ?

[franktrujillo]

i had a laying worker i placed a frame of eggs in with bees and added a healthy shake of more bees.waited 2 days added another frame of eggs no bees then the made there own queen.

[Oldtimer]

Yes good point Frank, it's often not nessecary to wait the full 3 weeks in fact they'll sometimes raise cells on the first bit of brood you put in there. If that happens they can be requeened immediately, or, as you did, left to let the cell become the queen.

[Michael Bush]

>Does it make a difference if the laying workers just started laying or if they have been at it for a long time?

Once they are laying I haven't seen any difference in their acceptance of a queen. They kill her pretty consistently. As far as how long they need open brood to suppress them it might take less if they just started.

> 5 days ago I noticed that one hive was queenless. I got my new queen for this hive and before putting her in I thought I'd double check and look carefully one more time for a queen and/or new eggs. The light conditions were not too good but I noticed eggs on the wall of the cells and there was no queen in the hive. I also saw two eggs (actually 2 and 1/2 eggs) in a queen cell cup... Will requeening at an early stage (4-5 days) of LW work?

Not in my experience.

>Or do you still recommend following the 3 week open brood frame strategy regardless of how long the workers have been laying?

I gave up ever trying to introduce a queen, and do the open brood until they raise one. I never have trouble with them accepting their own queen. But if you want to introduce a queen, I would do open brood until they start queen cells from the open brood you give them.

> I dropped the new queen cage in last night but I could take her out before they get to her...

I've often seen a queen in a cage dead in less than a day when they want to dispose of her...

>I also need to mention that this is the strongest hive I got in my apiary...

Probably worth some open brood then...

[Mountain Bee]

Well I will be the first to admit I don't know everything but I do know when it is time to keep my ears open and mouth shut when I can learn something from someone who has been at it alot longer than myself but I also know that I did just what I explained in my forth post and that queen has been in the hive for 48 hrs. now plugging away. Maybe they she is still doomed to meet her demise. That is one of those things I don't know.

[jajtiii]

I had a hive swarm on me (actually, I've had quite a few do that to me this year), with me arriving a day or two late. With several queen cells available, so I took a few cells for Nucs and then split the hive, giving each side two cells. The hive in the original location (i.e. the one that kept receiving foragers) did not end up with a mated queen. Unfortunately, this year has been so hectic that I simply neglected to drop by and check at the appropriate time (even though I had a clearly written note to do so in my journal...)

So, here I have 'half-of-a-hive' with maybe 8 lbs of bees, about 6 weeks with no eggs and 5 weeks since the queen left to mate and didn't return. They had a nice few frames of drones coming on...

In most cases, I simply combine with a strong hive or give them a queen cell (for whatever reason, I have 100% success rate in dealing with laying workers when I drop a queen cell attached to a frame of capped brood in). This time, I decided to experiment and moved a Nuc from another outyard (5 frame deep) with a young queen onto their stand. I took the drone layer and moved it 10 yards to the north and facing a new direction. I put another Nuc beneath the original Nuc and put some of the empty, drawn frames from the drone layer in it.

I was thinking that I would come back and find the drone layer with a bunch of bees that were still 'playing house' with their errant sisters who were laying. Instead, I came back to find the drone laying hive had three bees in it...

I have since moved the drone laying hive back to the original stand and they are building up nicely now.

Weird.

[Rick 1456]

AAAhhhhh,,,,,Laying worker syndrome. I always seem to end up with a couple of these every year. Some things work some of the time on certain hives once in a while but not always. Adding brood works, but it takes time and resources. For me, it is a pain and I don't always want to use those resources. What works for me, and works all the time every time, is doing a trap out on the LW hive and giving a boost to a Nuc or weaker hive. ( I believe Old Timer shared this a while back and I have used it ever since ) Cone the LW entrance, bees go out, can't get back in, bees go into queen right hive. Once the majority of bees have left the LW,,,week or two depending and the adjacent hive is strong, then you can dump the remaining bees. It has been my experience the queen right hives will reject or kill the LWs. Any "goodies" remaining from the LW hive can be dispersed to the "needy".
Just a side note something that just happened to one of my hives as an example as to how strong a LW situation is or can be. I pushed the limit on my cell builder and did not add open brood in time. I had two queen cells coming on and figured one would make it and start laying in time. I checked, sure enough, capped brood on the far side of the hive. The hive seemed to not pick up like I thought so I went back in. No more brood, no queen, and some bullet caps in worker cells. My guess is the LW did the queen in. Hope this doesn't constitute a hijack.

[beedeetee]

I've been beekeeping for over 20 years and have had only one laying worker hive, but I can tell you what didn't work for me. I dumped the laying worker hive out on the ground 50 feet or so from their original location. Then I put a strong hive in that location since it was on a nice stand. Within a couple of hours a pile of dead bees showed up in front of the hive. The pile of bees was about the size of the laying worker hive. I suspect that they flew back expecting their hive and found the new hive and fighting ensued. I have always thought that if I ever have another laying worker hive that I will just do the shakeout and leave the space empty for a couple of days to let the bees find other homes (that they know isn't their own) before using that location.