[aristaeus]

For reasons too boring to get into (been ill, family visited from Europe and so on...) I had a 2-3 week period where I barely was able to look into the hives. One hive I looked at just prior to this gap in monitoring had a lot of drone brood and nothing else. I assumed this to be a laying worker.

Here we are 2-3 weeks later and I am finally in a position to do something about it. Yes, I know I should have done something 2 weeks ago but that is in the rearview mirror now. C'est la vie.

With such a delay I suspect my best course of action is to simply wind it down and let nature take its course? The alternatives are to put open brood in there in the hopes of them creating queen cells or maybe combine with another hive (but that runs the risk of the laying worker affecting the other hive too)?

Any other option I am not thinking of?

I guess the short question is, a laying worker hive 3 weeks down the road. Too late to do anything?

I have some strong hives but I dont want to weaken them to try to save something that can likely not be saved.

 

[johnmcda]

if you're sure it's a laying worker hive, then pick a strong hive and place a queen excluder on it. place the laying worker hive directly above the QE. Walk away and leave it alone. Check back in several days and you should see dead bees in front of the hive. The bees from the strong hive go up into the laying worker hive and kill the laying workers.They do not smell right, they give off a pheromone that the laying worker hive has accepted as queen pheromone. When you're no longer seeing dead bees, you can combine or separate the hives.

 

[Saltybee]

Take any supers and plop it on another hive.
Divie the other frames up one or two to a customer on the outside edges.

Or; place a window screen and an empty ( some report chewed feet with just a screen) instead of the excluder for the pacifist method.
Hive tool to decap most of the drone brood if you have the time.

A glass store that does window replacements just throws the old screens away.

 

[aristaeus]

For reasons too boring to get into (been ill, family visited from Europe and so on...) I had a 2-3 week period where I barely was able to look into the hives. One hive I looked at just prior to this gap in monitoring had a lot of drone brood and nothing else. I assumed this to be a laying worker.

Here we are 2-3 weeks later and I am finally in a position to do something about it. Yes, I know I should have done something 2 weeks ago but that is in the rearview mirror now. C'est la vie.

With such a delay I suspect my best course of action is to simply wind it down and let nature take its course? The alternatives are to put open brood in there in the hopes of them creating queen cells or maybe combine with another hive (but that runs the risk of the laying worker affecting the other hive too)?

Any other option I am not thinking of?

I guess the short question is, a laying worker hive 3 weeks down the road. Too late to do anything?

I have some strong hives but I dont want to weaken them to try to save something that can likely not be saved.

if you're sure it's a laying worker hive, then pick a strong hive and place a queen excluder on it. place the laying worker hive directly above the QE. Walk away and leave it alone. Check back in several days and you should see dead bees in front of the hive. The bees from the strong hive go up into the laying worker hive and kill the laying workers.They do not smell right, they give off a pheromone that the laying worker hive has accepted as queen pheromone. When you're no longer seeing dead bees, you can combine or separate the hives.

Thanks guys so it seems the consensus is to call it a day on this hive and combine. I have some strong hives so I will try to use the hardware in a split on one of those.

A cooler day today, in the mid 80s, so I will head out to look at the hives this morning.

Thanks for the input! appreciated.

 

[KRhodes]

To make a laying worker hive queen right add one frame capped brood and one or two capped queen cells. Come back in three or four weeks. Works about every time.

 

[aristaeus]

To make a laying worker hive queen right add one frame capped brood and one or two capped queen cells. Come back in three or four weeks. Works about every time.

Thanks, not sure I have any capped queen cells but I will consider it. With it being three weeks plus and the population already in steep decline it might be a case of throwing good bees after bad ones...

 

[AnVil]

To make a laying worker hive queen right add one frame capped brood and one or two capped queen cells. Come back in three or four weeks. Works about every time.

Not in my experience. In my (limited) experience LW will never accept new queen or Q-cell. Even if you add brood which will suppress LW laying abilities still they won't accept or try to make a new queen.

 

[JWPalmer]

This is one of the reasons Beesource is so great. People with different experiences can relate them. There is no right or wrong for what has or hasn't worked for different folks. In my case, I am 50/50 on having an LW hive accept a queen cell after giving them an open frame of brood. Kinda like flipping a coin. Every flip is a 50/50 chance of heads or tails. Sometimes you get tails several times in a row. Does not mean you will always get tails.

 

[Live Oak]

To make a laying worker hive queen right add one frame capped brood and one or two capped queen cells. Come back in three or four weeks. Works about every time.

In my experience, this will work when there is a strong nectar/pollen flow but when the nectar flow falls off, the the reproductive urge does as well unless you supplementally feed nectar/honey/sugar syrup and pollen/pollen substitute. The problem with this is that feeding a hive during a dearth or weak nectar flow can invite being robbed out if that hive is not a very strong and populated hive. This leaves the beekeeper with feeding ALL the hives or not feeding in many cases.

 

[WRLCPA]

In my experience, this will work when there is a strong nectar/pollen flow but when the nectar flow falls off, the the reproductive urge does as well unless you supplementally feed nectar/honey/sugar syrup and pollen/pollen substitute. The problem with this is that feeding a hive during a dearth or weak nectar flow can invite being robbed out if that hive is not a very strong and populated hive. This leaves the beekeeper with feeding ALL the hives or not feeding in many cases.

I just recently had this situation. There is another thread that chronicles it. Anyhow, what I did was simply shock the bees off the comb and placed all 5 frames on a strong nuc. The workers cleaned up the LW eggs and the queen was laying in the LW combs in a day. I will re-split this Nuv once there is brood and eggs and larva for them to make a new queen