[beemerry]

I thought I had 4 strong colonies survive the winter from my 5 hives when today I discovered that one of them must be queenless with laying workers. The hive was full of sloppily placed drone brood and cells had more than one egg/larva. Drones were already hatched (I am in central Southern Ontario-too early in the season for drones in abundance). Is dumping the bees and removing the hive my next step? How do I keep the brood from rotting in the frames before I can reuse the frames? Will all the bees be lost or will they join existing hives? Nights are still below freezing at times. Thanks

 

[rwlaw]

In my mind, do a search on getting rid of laying workers, if it's a strong hive why just toss em eh?. Either get a new queen or do a newspaper combine, but only when your sure there's more eggs being laid.

 

[Michael Bush]

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

I figure the bees put a lot of resources into any brood, so I always give it to some other hive so they won't spend their resources on more drones.