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Laying Worker

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Donovan J:
The aggressive hive was requeened today. In my other hive they had some nice queencells 14 days ago. Well now all the cells are filled with eggs. Like 5-10 eggs per cell all over the frames. This is a serious laying worker problem and I have a plan to fix it unless someone else has another suggestion. I take a few frames of bees from my newly requeened hive and make a split with the bees. I order another queen and put her into the hive. Let her start laying in there and once it's full of brood take the laying worker hive put it over the hive with newspaper and do a newspaper combine. Thoughts?

NigelP:
Thoughts....why bother.
Replace with a new split/bought in queen, its quicker than trying to save  a laying worker hive.
These are old bees and are not long for this world and IMHO the effort to save them far outweighs any benefits of doing so. Throw them out they will filter into other queen right hives in your apiary and at least be useful for what time they have left.

Michael Bush:
I would not do a newspaper combine with a laying worker hive.  You'll just end up with a really big laying worker hive...

https://bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

Ben Framed:

--- Quote from: NigelP on June 30, 2022, 03:50:50 am ---Thoughts....why bother.
Replace with a new split/bought in queen, its quicker than trying to save  a laying worker hive.
These are old bees and are not long for this world and IMHO the effort to save them far outweighs any benefits of doing so. Throw them out they will filter into other queen right hives in your apiary and at least be useful for what time they have left.

--- End quote ---

Agreed

yes2matt:
Wait a minute. This timeline is throwing me. You had "nice queen cells " two weeks ago, and you have laying workers now? The last of the worker brood only emerged this past week.

Sometimes, when a new queen is just getting started, she is a little.... incontinent. A young queen might put any number f eggs any number of places until she gets it figured out.

I would give em another week before I shook them out as Nigel suggested.


Edit to add: however, if you give them an extra week then shake them out, I would cycle those combs thru the freezer, in my area  they would be slap full of SHB eggs.

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