[Janer]

I had three laying worker hives this spring out of new packages. I shook all three out 100 yards away, then set up one hive with different drawn out foundation on the site of one of the hives. After several hours I put in a new queen with a candy plug and crossed my fingers. ( many bees were back to the hive)
When I checked four days later the new queen was alive and well and doing her thing. Fast forward to one week later. I now see some frames with three or four eggs on the bottom of the cells again, but one or two frames with only one. The queen is still there and appears normal.

So, obviously either several of the laying workers made it back to the hive. Do you think their ovaries will be surpressed once the new queen's larvae develope a little bit? This is my first experience with laying workers. And also, what are my odds of the hive surviving when there has been a month of no worker bee births? I hate to just maintain a weak hive and invite other problems like SHB.
I await your wise words.....

 

[jrose1970]

Hi Janer,
I would say just give them time. If she is laying, then her offspring will eventually win out. The open brood will also suppress the laying worker instinct. These be my thoughts. LOL.

 

[Steve zone 5 WI]

Hi,
I have one that's doing that now. (A lot of eggs at the bottom center)
I have read here that a new queen may sometimes get a little excited and lay more than one egg per cell. I plan on waiting for a couple of weeks to see if she sorts it out.

Steve

 

[Slow Drone]

If the queen is laying it'll work out. Laying workers are always in a queen right hive they're just not as noticeable. If you have a frame of brood to donate from another hive, it would help.

 

[AstroBee]

Actually, I'm surprised they didn't kill your mated queen. Consider yourself lucky. Yes, laying workers can fly and they will return back to the old location despite being shaken out 100 yards away. So, that means you still have these active laying workers in this newly setup hive, therefore it should almost be expected that you'll see multiple eggs for a while. The good news is that they are tolerating your mated queen. The best solution at this point, as suggested by Slow Drone, is to give them some brood from another queenright colony.

 

[Harley Craig]

I shook out a laying worker hive last yr and put a small nuc with a very small entrance in it's place that already had an established queen and there were a few bees that went in and got balled and expelled rather quickly. I assumed them to be laying workers as I never had a problem after that.

 

[AstroBee]

a small nuc with a very small entrance in it's place that already had an established queen

Correct. Small differences in technique can make a big difference in the outcome. If I understand both scenarios, you (HC) took a small established nuc and placed it at the location of the LW. Shook out the LW colony and watched the result. The OP (again if I follow exactly what was done) shook out LW and placed drawn comb at old location and then later put in a new queen at that location. To me that's a big difference. However, both approaches place the queens in jeopardy. In your case, I'd expect to see fighting at the entrance, where the approach in the OP I would not. The success of your approach is dependent upon the relative populations of the nuc vs the returning LWs. At least that's how I see it.

 

[Harley Craig]

yes slightly different but same approach. I did it because no matter what I did they would not draw queen cells and could not get the LW suppressed. I tried for about 4 weeks Believe it or not there was not much fighting. The Nuc was an 8 fram medium ready for a second box, the LW hive was 2 meds so I stuck a second box of comb on the nuc when I moved it there were a lot of bees on the front trying to get in, and one or two at a time they would work their way in with zero problem, and there were just a few times where it seemed like chaos and a small pile of bees would hit the ground. A few days later, I re-split and they quickly started drawing queen cells from on a frame of eggs.

 

[philip.devos]

Thanks Astro and Harley! I have what I believe to be 2 laying worker hives, one that had a new mated queen, and the other was the source of a split, from where I had moved the queen. The second hive had a bunch of open brood, but they apparently never made a new queen.

I will be shaking one of these out next week, about 150 feet away from the original location, and will follow your advice to set up a nuc with a small entrance. In stead of jeopardizing a new queen, I am considering a frame of capped honey, a frame of pollen, and grafting and placing a frame of 15 or so cups in the nuc along with a frame of open and capped brood. I'm thinking few if any of the LW's will be making it back to the new hive.

Do you think this is wishful thinking?

Phil

 

[AstroBee]

For me, I don't put a lot of effort trying into turning around laying workers. I have lots of hives and cannot dedicate the time giving eggs repeatedly week after week. I've posted this several times before, but what I do is very simple. In all of my yards the colonies are arranged so that any nearest neighbor isn't more than a couple feet away. So given this arrangement, I take the LW colony about 100 ft away and quickly shake all bees onto the ground. I then take all hive resources and distribute them to my other colonies. That's it. Nothing goes at the location of the LW colony. For these LW bees, its like their colony has disappeared. They quickly find another nearby colony that will accept them. If you want to regain a queenright wait a few days and pull a split using the resources from your queenright colonies. I like this for the following reasons: No (possibly few) bees are lost, it can be done is about 10 minutes, no resources are taken from your thriving colonies to support poor colonies, if all nearby colonies are strong then there is very little risk to nearby queens.

 

[philip.devos]

Re: Astrobee #10 reply: Your view makes a lot of sense. Phil