Bee panacea process question/progress

[derekNGA]

Quick run down/refresher...was a really strong hive.  Swarm in March and has fallen since.  Less in numbers to the point of no eggs or larvae, but speckled drone capped.  Running a deep and medium.  Deep nothing and medium is what had the drones.  Posted question and replies were laying worker and my options.  I chose bee panacea. 
I began on June 22 with my first transfer frame of eggs, larvae, capped brood.  Second round was June 28.  All looked good on the donor frame.  But hoping to see queen cells I did not.  However, oddly I did find on another frame about 1/3 of one side had cells with single sorta offset but some centered eggs. Hmmm, just assumed laying worker still.  Today, July 4, I put in the last donor frame on the process.  The first frame put in the 22 looked as should.  All capped.  No eggs, no larvae.  Good, like it should be.  But, there was this one half grown larvae in one cell.  Hmmm, math dont add up.
On the donor frame put in the 28, all looked as should.  No eggs, some larvae and capped brood.  The old frame from the hive I removed to place the 3rd donor frame was nothing but dried up dark looking pollen.  Except, there were two still open queen cells that had eggs in the centers. 
Im lost as to how to interpret any of this.  Can anyone explain what is going on?  Do I, did I have hive problems?
And if there is an issue or laying workers when will the panacea process repress that and they begin using the donor eggs to make a queen?  If there is a laying worker, would it lay an egg into queen cells? Ideas/thoughts welcome.

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

The problem with a laying worker is the bees think they have a queen, so no need to build queen cells.  Have you seen multiple eggs in a single cell?

[BeeMaster2]

Not only do you look for multiple eggs but more importantly where are they located. Queens lay the eggs at the bottom of the cell, laying workers attach them to the sides of the cell. The abdomen is not long enough to reach the bottom. New queens will lay 2 to 3 eggs in a cell her first couple of weeks.
Jim

[Van, Arkansas, USA]

Very good info sawdust.  Info like this is why I come to this site.  Thanks

[Michael Bush]

I would continue with the open brood and eggs until things get back to normal.  Sometimes things are very hard to read.  Sometimes things are quite clear.

[little john]

Ideas/thoughts welcome.

Well, these are my thoughts, but you may not like to hear them ...

So far you've donated 3 good frames of brood to this ailing colony, and if you follow MB's advice you'll quite possibly be donating a 4th. Already by today you could have started 3 perfectly viable nucleus colonies with those brood frames, with a view to using one of them to re-queen your problem colony following a dump-out.

Trying to save a LW colony by throwing resources at it may be an interesting enough academic exercise - just to see if it can be done - but what a waste of resources if it fails ...

Nevertheless, it was your decision to try this - so I wish you the very best of luck, and sincerely hope that you're successful.
LJ

[Michael Bush]

Young brood and eggs are a minor expense for a donor colony.  Capped brood is a major expense.  I suggest young brood and eggs.  Probably the problem is already resolved, but it's just not clear yet.  In another week or two it will probably become clear.

[eltalia]

Young brood and eggs are a minor expense for a donor colony.  Capped brood is a major expense.  I suggest young brood and eggs.  Probably the problem is already resolved, but it's just not clear yet.  In another week or two it will probably become clear.

Wholly agree Michael, on all counts.
Elsewhere I have copped/attracted flak for my pheromone suppression
method from the "shake 'em out" lobby, a method I find far more wasteful
in terms of colony resource than the substitution method you push.
Unlike yourself I fail to own the quiet persistence of dedicated persuasion.
Folks will do what folks do, live and learn.

Cheers.


Bill

[little john]

Michael Bush's advice is to give a Laying Worker Colony a comb of open brood for 3 weeks, and should that not be successful, then a comb of open brood for another 2 weeks.  So - the best-case scenario offered by the so-called 'Panacea' method is that the LWC will be ready to raise or accept a queen in 3 weeks - with the worst-case being in five weeks.
 
If those resources were instead used to form one or more nucleus colonies, then the creation of a new queen could be started on Day One - 3 or possibly 5 weeks ahead of MB's method, and with greater certainty.

Trying to salvage a Laying Worker Colony makes little sense, as it offers no advantage over the strategy of creating a nucleus colony for later combination with the LWC's forager workforce.
LJ

[little john]

Young brood and eggs are a minor expense for a donor colony.  Capped brood is a major expense.  I suggest young brood and eggs. 

This method is targeted at beginners - who will undoubtedly be using existing frames of BIAS (Brood In All Stages) - so the 'minor expense' argument can be considered void.
LJ

[Acebird]

This method is targeted at beginners - who will undoubtedly be using existing frames of BIAS (Brood In All Stages)

I agree.  But at this time of the year for me to dig through a hive that is in full swing I consider that too much work and disruptive to the production hive.  My solution is for the beginner to make more splits in the spring then the number of colonies they want.  Then in the fall decide which ones get dumped, combined or nursed through overwintering.  The goals for a commercial beekeeper are nothing like a beginner or a backyard keeper.  And they don't have to be.
If this is your first year of beekeeping I think it should be an observation year.  Find out what happens and when it happens.  The practice of robbing resources from one hive to save another when you don't know much about beekeeping is a recipe for disaster that first year.  Save it for the future when you can afford to lose them both in the experiment.

[Michael Bush]

If you keep swapping empty comb (or comb with some drones) from the laying worker hive to the donor hive and a frame of eggs and brood from the donor hive, the laying worker hive will raise all the brood.  It is not wasted.  It keeps the laying worker hive going.  I do think that the effort is too much for a hive that is not in your back yard, but it's easy enough to do if the hive is right there.  A queen can lay 3000 eggs a day and most hives cannot care for anywhere near that.  The laying worker hive, however, is desperate for those fertilized eggs.

[tycrnp]

So if you have a laying worker hive, could you remove the frames of "bad brood," add a frame of brood in various stages, shake the bees in the yard, and introduce a new queen?

[Michael Bush]

Usually after about two weeks and certainly after three weeks of open brood exposure you can introduce a queen.  I don't like to waste queens on laying worker hives.  They can raise their own.