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"Rumbling" sound coming from hive
Duane:
I have noticed more than once a sound, kind of like rumbling, or maybe like how I remember pigeons sometimes sound in their nests, coming from the box. I have listened to sounds of queens piping, and this is much lower. I went through the box and didn't find any mice, birds, or what not. Never the sound on the frame I'm holding. Has anyone else heard anything like this? I had suspected this box being queenless, but did see eggs on the bottom of the cells. Some had more than one egg. But there was capped worker brood. Not that that would relate to the sound.
iddee:
Can you post a pic of the capped brood? If it is flat, all is well. If it is rounded like the end of bullets, you may still be queenless.
paus:
More than one egg per cell may be laying worker or workers.
VermontHoneyBee:
--- Quote from: Duane on July 15, 2018, 07:20:52 pm ---?.Some had more than one egg. But there was capped worker brood. Not that that would relate to the sound.
--- End quote ---
That kind of tells me that you may have a laying worker. A laying worker will lay more than one egg per cell, some times, but the most important thing is that they lay only drones. Do you see young/nurse bees?. Look for significantly raised cells as opposed cells that are just barely raised. If you don't see young bees and many drones that may tell you that you are queenless.
If you are queenless and have a laying worker, adding a new queen is more complicated. You will need to kill the laying worker first. One way I found, with my queenless hive, is that I emptied the entire hive of all frames and shook the frames about 100 feet from the hive to the ground. The goal here is to shake the laying worker off the frames. The laying worker has never been outside of the hive so she will not find her way to the hive. All of the other bees will find their way back. Of course, if you are not queenless you may be shaking the queen and if you just became queenless you may lose some nurse bees. The fact that you are saying that there is more than one egg per cell tells me that you have a laying worker. Good luck
iddee:
vhb, there's a lot of incorrect info there.
Many times a new queen will lay 2 or 3 eggs per cell for a few days. With laying workers, there can be many eggs per cell.
There is not just 1 laying worker There are hundreds in a laying worker hive.
Shaking out a hundred feet away will result in losing all bees less than about 2 weeks old. Only the foragers will know the way back home.
If there are still plenty of worker bees in the hive, the best way to requeen is with one of these.... https://beezneedz.com/product/qrs-queen-intro/
Scratch most of the drone brood and install the new queen for a week or two, until you no longer see eggs. Then it is safe to release her.
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