It isn't what it looks like......

[beemandan]

You’re getting ready to yell at me for letting my bees cook….but…it isn’t what it looks like. I’ve just shaken out a laying worker hive in this yard and these two were the nearest to it. It’s going to be OK.

[Tom Brueggen]

So are the laying workers trying to join a queen right hive? Is that a good way to fix a laying worker problem?

[beemandan]

It doesn't fix the laying worker hive....it eliminates it. My best guess is that the actual 'laying workers', once shook out in the yard are unable to find their way home or cannot fly or are not accepted in another hive. I don't really know the dynamics of it.
I think the bees that you see on the front of the hive are foragers who couldn't find their old home, since I removed it, and went to the next nearest. In my experience, most are eventually accepted. I rarely find a pile of dead bees at the entrances of neighboring hives. If I find a laying worker hive in early spring I sometimes will try to save it but this late in the season it just isn't worth it, in my opinion.

[CaBees]

How come the laying workers can't fly? How are they different then foragers? (new BEE question!)

[NasalSponge]

The assumption is they are nurse bees that have never left the hive.

I don't really know the dynamics of it.

That is closer to the truth.

[Keth Comollo]

Bees will head towards the nearest queen. Take a look at this. A mating nuc yard. 34 mating nucs. One hive we missed the queen. Once we set up the yard many of the other bees sought her out as a queen. Ooops.. .

[beemandan]

By the next morning peace reigns again.

[Tom Brueggen]

It doesn't fix the laying worker hive....it eliminates it.

Yeah I guess I didn't mean "fixing" the laying worker hive. A true fix I guess would be to get the hive queenright without any major losses. The big risk of requeening a LW hive is that the bees may not accept the queen, or the LW may kill her, right? But in doing it like this, you aren't introducing a queen to a LW hive, you're making the LW's introduce themselves to a queenright hive, or else die. You're basically combining the LW hive with a queenright hive, but giving the guards at the queenright hive a chance to enforce some discretion. I actually think this is a great idea. It basically serves as combining two hives, but lets nature do the work, instead of the beek having to try the old newspaper trick or whatever.

Nurse bees should be able to fly, they just never have. They have never left the hive, so if displaced from it, they may not find their way back. But they should pick up the scents of other hives, and if they have any will to survive, they'll go find some goodies and join the party. They become like that guy at the frat party that ain't from around these parts, but he's got beer, so he's allowed to stay.

Speaking of recombining a LW hive with a queenright hive, if you have a screen in place, and just set a brood box full of LW's on top of a queenright hive, would that work to make the layers stop, once the queen's pheromone takes over? I know there are all sorts of ideas on how to salvage a LW hive, but this one seems easy enough to me. I know with newspaper the bees will eat it and then join forces, but if they eat it too quick, the LW's could still be doing their thing. I'm thinking screen the top of the queenright brood box, and then add the second brood box of LW's. Give it a week or so for the queen's pheromones to really take over, then pull the screen. Would that work?