[ACBEES]

I have a trapped out double deep feral hive which failed to make a queen and now has laying worker(s). I also have a russian cross hive that didn't build up well. I have been reading about ways to deal with the laying worker issue. One option I found was to use a double screen board and combine the laying worker hive with a queenright hive. The idea is the queen pheromone will permeate the laying worker hive and supposedly "turn off" the laying workers.

I have two questions. has anyone successfully used this method? Question two...will ferals accept a russian cross queen? Thanks

 

[AR Beekeeper]

I have joined colonies with laying workers to queenright colonies using the newspaper method so a double screen should work. I removed the combs with laying worker eggs/larvae before joining them together. I have read that the pheromones produced by the young uncapped larvae in the queenright colony is what actually causes the workers to stop laying.

Feral colonies of European Honey Bees will accept any laying queen properly introduced.

 

[longrangedog]

A laying worker colony thinks it's queenright which creates all the problems associated with requeening. The brood pheromone is what prevents laying workers- not the queen pheromone. I would be very hesitant to combine a queenright colony with a laying worker colony. You may end up with a larger laying worker colony. I have salvaged laying worker colonys by adding open brood frames. Add a frame a week for 3 weeks and in most cases they will make a queen cell by the 3rd week. Be sure the brood frames have eggs.

 

[ACBEES]

Longrange and AR thanks for setting me right. I thought the queen pheromone from the queenright colony would suppress the laying worker(s).