laying workers

[trish]

Hi Everyone,

So this is my first year with 2 hives.  One is doing great and I just added another medium super as a brood box.  Unfortunately the other has been a problem from the start.  There was a queen mixed in with the workers, so when I released the caged queen, she disappeared.  There were eggs, larva and capped brood much earlier than expected so that's how we figured there was a queen mixed in with the workers.  This queen also disappeared but the girls were industrious and we found lots of queen cups and eventually another queen (last sighted on 21 May).  This was exciting and we gave her some time to go on her mating flight.  There were no eggs last week and today we found 2 -3 eggs in some of the cells - there were also cells with larva in various stages.  None of the cells are capped yet so I can't confirm that these are all drones yet but I'm guessing the workers are laying.  It looks like they are forming some queen cells again.  I took 2 frames with brood (both capped and uncapped) from the good hive and add these to the queenless one in hopes of suppressing the workers from laying. And maybe they will finish making another queen.

 I know it's likely that I will lose the hive but I would like to try everything before writing it off.  Should I let them try to make another queen since they've started trying already ?  Or is it worth buying another mated queen (if I can find one) to get things going again?  i want the colony to be strong enough to make it through the winter.

Any advice or experiences you can share is much appreciated!!  Many thanks!

[Aroc]

There are queens available.  Just need to find them.  I saw where www.wildflowermeadows.com had some.  They are VSH queens if you are interested.  Not sure if adding a queen to a hive that has a laying worker will work though. 

[iddee]

2 or 3 eggs in the bottom of a cell is likely new queen. 5 or more eggs on the side of cells is laying worker. Give her a week to get her routine down pat.

[trish]

That is great news!!  I had no idea that they needed some practice time!  The eggs were is the center which had me confused and there were single eggs in most of the cells so I was hoping that maybe I caught the laying workers early. I checked the past 2 days and couldn't find the queen.  This along with the multiple egg cells caused me to panicked.
Thanks again!  I am so happy for forums like this!!!!
 

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfallacies.htm#doubleeggs
http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

[trish]

Thanks Michael!!  Still trying to learn as I go along.  I'm hoping that the queen is there and I just missed her.  I added in 2 frames of brood on Saturday just in case.  I'll check back this weekend - fingers crossed!

[Michael Bush]

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

[Rurification]

As long as you have more than one hive, don't worry if a hive goes queenless [yours probably isn't, but for the future...]

Michael has great info on his site about adding a frame of brood to a slow hive.  It has worked for me every single time.   No need to buy a queen from someone else when you can make your own queens from your own bees.    I've doubled my number of hives this year in just this way. 

Best of luck with your bees!