I have two laying worker hives?

[rookie2531]

I made some splits about a month ago for various reasons, trying to find a queen, making cell starter and while it happened, a walk away split.

Anyway, I grafted to one before I knew they were a laying worker hives and they did make a few queen cells, but they have not emerged yet and I caged the cells. The thing that made me notice they are laying workers is, I noticed multiple eggs in the cups that did not get accepted and now they are starting to cap those.

The other one is a small nuc (about 3.5 frames of bees). I have seen eggs in there for the last 3 days but after looking very slowly and carefully seen no queen. I have seen a couple cells with 2 eggs and most looks normal, in the center, but small areas all over. Not a solid pattern.

I have read some things about suppressing them and thinking, especially since neither hive eggs has advanced to larvae yet.

That I can take a frame from these laying worker hives and put one in each queen right hive. Will this work?

[rookie2531]

I forgot, I do have queen cells that are due to emerge this Friday.

[Michael Bush]

I would put the queen cells in the laying worker hives.

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

[BeeMaster2]

"That I can take a frame from these laying worker hives and put one in each queen right hive. Will this work?"


It works the other way around. You place a frame of brood with eggs from a queen right hive and place it in a laying worker hive. Usually takes up to 3 weeks, placing a frame a week. The brood pheromones suspress the laying workers.
Jim

[rookie2531]

I would put the queen cells in the laying worker hives.

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

I read that part of your book and you said that rarely works? Are you suggesting it because I caught it early?

Plus Jim, If one frame of open brood suppresses them over time, wouldn't a frame of LW going into a bunch of open brrod frames suppress it much quicker?

[Michael Bush]

>I read that part of your book and you said that rarely works? Are you suggesting it because I caught it early?

What rarely works?  A queen cell?  If often works. 

>That I can take a frame from these laying worker hives and put one in each queen right hive. Will this work?

There is never any reason to take a frame from the laying worker hives and put it in a queen right hive, unless you are calling it a total loss and you are shaking out all the bees and then giving the frames to another hive.  There is nothing else to be accomplished by taking a frame of laying workers and putting them in a queen right hive.  There are several ways it can go wrong and the best you can hope for is that it doesn't go wrong.  There is no good outcome from doing this, just neutral ones if you are scrapping the hive anyway.

[rookie2531]

>I read that part of your book and you said that rarely works? Are you suggesting it because I caught it early?

What rarely works?  A queen cell?  If often works. 

>That I can take a frame from these laying worker hives and put one in each queen right hive. Will this work?

There is never any reason to take a frame from the laying worker hives and put it in a queen right hive, unless you are calling it a total loss and you are shaking out all the bees and then giving the frames to another hive.  There is nothing else to be accomplished by taking a frame of laying workers and putting them in a queen right hive.  There are several ways it can go wrong and the best you can hope for is that it doesn't go wrong.  There is no good outcome from doing this, just neutral ones if you are scrapping the hive anyway.

I am a little confused.

3) Put a queen cell in (either a frame from a hive trying to supersede or swarm or one that you made by queen rearing techniques). Sometimes they will let the queen emerge. Usually they will tear it down.

[don2]

not really that confusing. If you have a queen right hive that the queen is laying in. Take a frame of open brood from that [ the queen right} hive. Put it in the laying worker hive. Do nothing else to the laying worker hive for 5 to 7 days. At this time most of the brood will be capped or nearly so. If you still do not see a queen, at this time ignore any queen cells. add another frame of brood, from a different strong hive if you have another. Or from the same hive as before. Repeat this in another week. simple. don't try to make it complicated. A the end of the third week you should have a queen or at least a good queen cell.

At the time I found eggs in one split and none in the other, I added a frame of brood to the one that didn't have eggs. I had to add only one more frame of brood {2 total} and had a queen by the end of that time. It is doing fine. d2

On another note, it is hard to tell if it is laying workers unless you actually see the worker laying, until  there is some capped brood and it is all drone.

[BeeMaster2]

Rookie,
A frame of brood from a laying worker hive will bee all drone larvae. Drone larvae do not suppress laying workers. Only female larvae suppress laying workers. The reason a queenless hive ends up with laying workers is because there is no worker brood to suppress the worker bees from becoming laying workers. This is a last ditch effort of the hive to pass on their genes by producing thousands of drones to mate with the local virgin queens. When it happens without intervention of adding worker brood frames, the SHB quickly move in and slime the whole hive because the worker bee population drops and they are no longer able to keep ahead of cleaning the eggs and larvae out of the hive.
If you place a frame of bees from a worker bee hive into a queen right hive, you are adding 2 major problems to that hive.
You are adding a bunch of laying worker bees who think they are queens and if not controlled by the queen right hive, they will kill your queen and you are adding thousands of drones to the hive that they may not bee able to support them. If they cannot kick them out in time may exhaust resources if you do not have a flow on and may cause it to crash. Remember SHBs are always standing by waiting for a hive to be over stressed. When a hive is over stressed, the SHBs can smell it and will swarm in on it by the thousands and overwhelm it.
Jim

[rookie2531]

Wow, more great info. Thanks Jim. I really don't have alot of time in the yard these days. Think ill just shake them out and put the frames in strong queen hives.

Thanks to everyone. Ill let everyone know the results.

[BeeMaster2]

That is what I usually do. Do it a fair ways from your hives. They will just move in with your other hives. The guard bees will keep out the laying workers.
Jim

[Michael Bush]

>I am a little confused.
>3) Put a queen cell in (either a frame from a hive trying to supersede or swarm or one that you made by queen rearing techniques). Sometimes they will let the queen emerge. Usually they will tear it down.

We are talking odds.  The odds are slightly in favor of them tearing it down.  But they may not.  It's not a bad bet if you have the cells to spare.  Maybe "sometimes' would be more accurate than "usually" but I would lean a little bit towards the "usually".  but only a little...

[rookie2531]

Update on one, Mike I did have a couple cells to spare and probably at the time you replied, I was out splitting and threw two in the small nuc. It is thunderstorming now, but if I get a chance will see if they are o.k. if all is good, will probably in cage the others in the other hive.

Well see. If torn down, then a shake out.

[rookie2531]

Well, I put two cells in one and when I looked, they have both emerged. They were in cages, but the cages were open at the bottom.

The other lw hive had 3 caged cells and two had emerged and one wasn't yet. I opened the bottom and let her walk out and down the frame she went.

I guess I won't know until I see her again, in a couple weeks.