Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => GENERAL BEEKEEPING - MAIN POSTING FORUM. => Topic started by: gdog on April 26, 2012, 12:46:38 am
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I seriously believe my Queen is gone and the hive has been taken over by worker bees who are now laying drone.
My question is, if I were to place all the bees into a package container and place a new queen (still in the small wooden box) into the package for a few days.
Then after a few days place the bees back into a super with new frames and foundation. Would this be enough to fool those laying workers? and allow the new Queen to be released and not killed? Haven't seen any questions or answers like this.
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What you want to do is dump all the bees from your hive onto the ground in front. Shake off all frames and get the hive as empty as possible. Put your frames back in with the new queen in her cage. Doing this the laying worker/s dont generally reenter the hive.
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http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm (http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm)
It takes open brood to change laying workers...
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http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm (http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm)
It takes open brood to change laying workers...
Could you clarify this statement??? I've got a laying worker and a shoot load of drones and drone brood... Help!
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Giving them a frame of open brood will usually give them the kick they need to start making queen cells to rear their own queen. Placing a new, caged queen in the hive is in my experience, futile. So if you have another hive you can rob frames of open brood from, add a frame every week or so and the hive will generally correct itself. The only other option that Ive done that seems to work, is build a requeening frame to house the queen for 7-10 days prior to release. But again placing a frame of open/capped brood right beside it works even better. Read MB's link above-great source of info.
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The one and only time that I experienced laying workers in one of my hives, I followed the advice of the guy who sold me my equipment and bees. He said to buy a queen and put the cage in the hive, along with a frame of open brood, but not to expose the candy for three days. After three days, I got in the hive and she was fine, bees from the hive were even clustered a little bit on the cage and they appeared to be caring for the brood. Then I removed the cork and closed it back up. Several days later, I actually found the marked queen, dead, outside the hive.
The guy said that I probably took the cord out too soon, so I tried again, adding another frame of brood a couple of days before putting in a second marked queen in a cage, and then, after four days when I got back in to remove the cork, and added another frame with open brood. Then, after a few more days, I got in and took out the cage. After that, I just let them be for awhile. I didn't see a dead queen in front of the hive, so I hoped for the best.
After a couple of weeks, I peeked inside and saw no new drone brood, in fact no new worker brood either, but I only looked at a couple of frames. After some time, I had gotten into the hive and was happy to see young brood and eggs in the center of the brood nest. Then, after pulling a few more frames, I found the queen, fat, yellow, and beautiful, but unmarked.
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Pheromones from worker brood is what suppresses ovary development in workers. Once you have laying workers, they are a danger to any queen that is introduced.
I don't think shaking out is a solution. The theory is that a laying worker has never oriented on the hive and so can't find her way back after a shakeout. But she will enter the nearest hive she can find. If you only have a few hives, the laying workers are likely to show up in all of them in significant numbers.
The best solution is to add frames of worker brood with eggs until they start a queen cell from the added eggs.
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one frame of open brood will usually not do it. you have to keep adding until they are suppressed. this means that you are taking from another hive. if you don't have a good strong hive to take from, it's not worth it.
so...you can shake them out, put that hive away, and let the bees join other hives (if you have them), or you can confine a queen in the hive until the laying workers are suppressed, BUT it is best if you can do it with some brood also.
if you read what MB sent you, his 3rd option is easy to do if you have a strong hive. you can put the strong, queen-right hive over the laying worker hive with window screen between. both hives need openings to the outside!!
i shake them out. not worth moving all that brood. not worth risking a queen IN the hive. not worth all that box shifting.
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I normally move a small queen right colony from another yard and place it in the laying worker location. I move the laying worker colony a few ft away. The laying worker colony loses it field force when they return to the orginal location. After a couple of days I shake the remaining bee's in the laying worker colony in the high grass near by. Any stores are given to the new queenright colony
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I never shake bees out.
If you have a laying worker colony, it means you have not had a queen laying eggs for at least 31 days. The bees are normally far less than what one had. It is easy to compress them down to one box, then place this one box on the top of a strong queenright colony using a simply newspaper combine.
If your doing a shakeout to get rid of the hive, that is one thing. If your doing a shakeout thinking you are going to place the same box in the original location, you will find out that laying workers fly just great.
In adding an additional box, you increased the room for the queenright colony to lay. After a few weeks, you can then break apart the larger hive into two hives, requeening the queenless split. No sense shaking bees out and storing frames, when they are filled with drones, honey, and other matter. Let the bees clean them up.
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No sense shaking bees out and storing frames, when they are filled with drones, honey, and other matter. Let the bees clean them up.
they can be put out again for cleanup in a couple of days after the bees have happily joined other hives.
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No sense shaking bees out and storing frames, when they are filled with drones, honey, and other matter. Let the bees clean them up.
they can be put out again for cleanup in a couple of days after the bees have happily joined other hives.
Good one!
You claim placing a box on top of another it too much work, yet now seem to make another trip to place frames back in the hive. And what exactly will be holding those frames? I'll go out and take a guess.....the very same box they came from.... :-D
As for the 'risk" involved in a newspaper combine, I feel the risk is just as great shaking out the bees and having them all bum-rush the next colony.
It is real simple. Take the box of laying workers, and place them on top of another colony using a newspaper. It's that easy. And if you really wanted to make sure that the queen will not be injured in the queenright colony, use a screen or cage her for a couple of days. I've never needed to do this. But for those wanting to make more than what is required, go for it.
Or were saying to leave the frames out in the yard for the bees to clean? That would be another issue. Let me know and I'll tell you what I think of that also. ;)
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I am with kathyp. I shake them out in the bee yard and place the empty box on another hive. The bees find a new home and I move on to the next chore.
Steve
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You claim placing a box on top of another it too much work, yet now seem to make another trip to place frames back in the hive
nope, just dump the box out the barn door and let whatever comes along rob it out. told you, i am a lazy beekeeper. + the barn is far enough away from the hives that it won't cause a robbing problem in the yard.
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I am with kathyp. I shake them out in the bee yard and place the empty box on another hive. The bees find a new home and I move on to the next chore.
Steve
Sorry Steve. I read it to be shaking out the bees, and not moving frames and boxes around. That the box was going to be stored. Now you are making the leap that one (kathy) is to shake out the bees, AND place the empty box on another hive. This what Kathy was saying she was not going to do. She said she did not want to move frames or boxes around. That was too much work. that there was a better, more lazier way of doing things. And by the fact that she mentions placing the frames outside for "clean up" only shows this.
And my point is...... worker laying colonies usually have a box of scattered drone cells. And they usually have honey, and larvae not really not being attended. Taking off the box, shaking out the bees, and storing the comb, just means that you now have hatching drones dying in the cells, larvae rotting in the comb, and comb that is going to be ruined.
That is why I suggest taking the box from the laying workers and simply placing it on a strong queenright colony. Let them clean up the comb. I can't believe that this is too much work for any beekeeper, by someone suggesting that it's too much work moving frames or boxes around. how much effort is there in shaking out bees from every frame, putting the frames away, and/or placing them back out for the bees to pick over, then storing them again, and so on? And lifting a box and placing it on top of another hive is too much?
My advice for new beekeepers.....place the box on top of another strong hive, let the bees clean out the cells, and skip all the other stuff, which to me seems far harder and less effective in dealing with the situation. Don't be a lazy beekeeper as others pride themselves on being. Lazy beekeeping usually translates into more work, less productivity, and additional problems. It is just the lazy beekeeper just does not see it. And if a better way was in front of their face, they would rationalize against it. ;)
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Don't be a lazy beekeeper as others pride themselves on being. Lazy beekeeping usually translates into more work, less productivity, and additional problems. It is just the lazy beekeeper just does not see it. And if a better way was in front of their face, they would rationalize against it.
it does not mean that i am inattentive, just that i don't make work for myself. your assertion that larvae and drones left in comb can be a problem is absurd. look at any dead out. what do you do with those frames? you reuse them and the bees clean them up.
i don't like newspaper combining. i am not fond of soggy newspaper and that's what i get here. + the window screen gives you more time to assure better combining when the procedure might be risky to your established queen. also, i am not fond of putting a nearly empty box...as many laying worker boxes are by the time they are found, on a hive unless it really needs a new box anyway.
i think we are arguing preferred procedures rather than good and bad beekeeping. what you do with a laying worker hive, like many things beekeeping, depends on your circumstances. having given our OP multiple ideas, it is up to him/her to pick what will work best.
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I've tried the newspaper combine and I don't like it. Too much fighting and too many dead bees. I've used a double screen board and I love it. Walk away for a week and then combine the colonies. End of story. I recently learned a trick I haven't tried yet for two queen colonies: If you want to save the queen, just put on a queen excluder when you take away the double screen.
And I don't like the idea of shaking bees because why have bees die unnecessarily. Doesn't make sense if you can avoid it and find another way.
I've got two queenless colonies and one has laying workers. I've added a frame of brood and eggs to each. Will be checking back in a few days but from recent experience, I know the situation will correct itself - if not after this first frame, for sure after the second or third. I took Michael Bush's advice. I have a fresh caught swarm with a nice queen that I will be combining to both of these (very small by this time), queenless colonies. It will be a three colony sandwich. Bottom to top it will be: queenless, double screen, swarm, double screen, queenless. Never tried it but it would be interesting to see what happens.
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Help!! I'm a very new beekeeper and I've been following this thread in hopes of getting some solid advice from some more experienced people.Sorry to write a novel, but I'm trying hard to be precise.
Here's what's going on: I have a Warre hive, with bees that absconded due to ants getting into it (a problem I've fixed after much aggravation due to the shape of my hive stand). Three days later in the late pm a fellow beekeeper brought over a cutout from a bee removal job and we dumped them into the hive. He told me he hadn't seen a queen, but that they could be tricky little devils with hiding.Because it was so late, I wasn't able to get the extra brood comb he brought over wired in until the late next day. Fellow keepers informed me that the brood would all be dead (mostly, but it looked like some made it). I went ahead and ordered a new queen because I wanted 4.9 bees, and these guys seemed pretty aggressive(hmm, maybe because their world had just been turned upside down??)
Fast forward three and a half weeks. The queen I ordered got lost in the mail and finally arrived yesterday, DOA along with her dead friends (bug heaven is now getting quite crowded courtesy of yours truly). My supplier is waiting to see if I want a refund or a new queen. My population seems to be shrinking, specifically field bees. I see some drift in and out, and just now maybe one or two with pollen (I'm in sunny Cali where there's forage year round, but we are getting near the end of the nectar flow), but not tons flying purposefully.
Upon opening the hive I see uncapped larvae and capped drone cells-MAYBE one or two worker cells, but sort of hard to tell. I found one hive beetle, now in beetle heaven, and some evidence of what I'm guessing is wax moths (opinion here please. Looks like tiny cereal crumbs around the margins of opened cells, plus I found a little wormish thing like a tiny caterpillar creeping from one cell to another-just one, now in bug heaven with his hive beetle friend.)
I have a screened bottom, and I see maybe 15ish dead fat bee?? larvae down there-is that normal? The brood pattern isn't very even. I see some eggs in the cell-tiny little rice-like and mostly one to a cell, but with the glare and kind of aggro bees looking through a dark net it was difficult to see. It also looked like there were cells with more than one egg also, but again, I'm brand new, alone, and practically need a seeing eye dog to help me inspect.
I don't see a queen, but I hear they can be tricky to find. I've read all the different methods to introduce a new queen, but for starters, I only have the one hive, so I don't have any brood comb to introduce, nor do I have another hive to "combine" with. My hive is already weakened so I'm concerned about shaking out bees-I think I need every last one I can get. And then there's the queen issue-if I have one, she doesn't seem to be doing a very good job(or maybe I'm too new and I'm missing it all), so if I replace her, I need to find her, and so far, two trips into the hive and no queen in sight.Please help me-this is the roughest start ever! Laura
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Fast forward three and a half weeks.
Upon opening the hive I see uncapped larvae and capped drone cells-MAYBE one or two worker cells, but sort of hard to tell.
I see some eggs in the cell-tiny little rice-like and mostly one to a cell
Laura,
You have a queen. Three and a half weeks and your are seeing open brood? You have a queen.
The dead brood on the BB is the bees cleaning up the mess from the cutout.
You see eggs. You have a queen.
Put a feeder on it and keep it full and leave them alone for two weeks.
You have a queen.
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I don't know what happened, but I placed 1 super with laying workers on top of a very strong queen right hive (newspaper between) and ended up with the top super filled with dead bees. Both had entrances.
I will not combine like that again.
I have tried the method of introducing open brood every week and it never took. I ended up weakening my strong hive.
Now I will only shake them out on the ground far away and let them fly into which ever hive will accept them.
Now here is another technique that I have never tried. Also it takes time and energy and resources from a very strong hive. Serge Labesque (a very prominent beekeeper around these parts) says that you have to introduce a frame of emerging brood the first week then a frame of eggs the second week. He says the new bees that are just born will make the queen from the frame of eggs the next week. He says the bees in the hive cannot make the queen because they are too old, hence, the emerging brood frame.
I have never tried this because I just have a few hives and never want to weaken my strong hives.
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Every time I had laying workers, I introduced a frame of brood - which probably had emerging brood and definitely eggs. Michael Bush advocates this. Worked every time. Never had to do this more than twice. If this hive was week - (which I've found is usually the case after laying workers develop), after they started making queen cells, I'd combine with another small colony using a double screen board. Best invention ever. Results were a working medium size colony.