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Author Topic: young queen or laying worker  (Read 13477 times)

Offline ajneal30

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #20 on: May 01, 2013, 12:17:00 pm »
No problem, I got it changed. Although hopelessly lost seemed pretty appropriate, lol. I live in the high desert of Nevada at an elevation of 5,500 feet. It easily get to 20- in the winter and 100+ in the summer with not much in between. Constant drought conditions make it difficult to raise bees but the price of rare fresh local honey make it worth the effort.

Offline Kathyp

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #21 on: May 01, 2013, 01:40:40 pm »
my oldest live in cave creek, AZ.  i was surprised when i visited at the number of honey bees.  he's also high and dry, but the bees seem to find enough stuff.
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #22 on: May 01, 2013, 03:18:28 pm »
It takes three weeks of open brood to straighten out laying workers.  Less does not work unless they were just starting down that road.  One week doesn't work.  Two weeks doesn't work.  It takes three weeks and THEN they will start some queen cells.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
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Offline ajneal30

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #23 on: May 03, 2013, 07:07:56 pm »
So what do I do if they have drawn out and capped a queen cell three days after giving them the fresh brood? (It was NOT there when we put it in, we inspected each frame very carefully) Will it even survive? Do I go ahead and introduce a new queen since they decided on their own that they needed one? Do I let whatever is in that cell hatch, or do it cut it off? Is it even possible for that cell to actually contain a queen in that situation? I have never heard of this happening.

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #24 on: May 03, 2013, 08:04:02 pm »
So what do I do if they have drawn out and capped a queen cell three days after giving them the fresh brood? (It was NOT there when we put it in, we inspected each frame very carefully) Will it even survive? Do I go ahead and introduce a new queen since they decided on their own that they needed one? Do I let whatever is in that cell hatch, or do it cut it off? Is it even possible for that cell to actually contain a queen in that situation? I have never heard of this happening.

That is exactly what you are wanting them to do. Now just leave them alone for the next month to give her time to hatch and mate. Just look in the top from time to time to make sure they have enough bees for her. Unless it is a really strong hive you might want to add a frame of capped brood in about a week or so.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
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Offline ajneal30

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #25 on: May 03, 2013, 09:23:26 pm »
Will she survive if she was an egg (or possibly a young larva) three days ago?

Offline BeeMaster2

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #26 on: May 03, 2013, 11:13:56 pm »
Being only 3 days means that she was 3 days as a larva, 6 days from being laid. She may not bee the best queen. If she has problems, the bees will detect it and let her start laying eggs and then use one of them to make a new queen. If she was fed royal jelly non stop then she will bee a good queen. The problem is when they are forced to use larvae that had been started to bee fed bee bread. They very seldom do that because it causes her to bee a poor queen.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #27 on: May 06, 2013, 09:06:18 am »
>So what do I do if they have drawn out and capped a queen cell three days after giving them the fresh brood? (It was NOT there when we put it in, we inspected each frame very carefully) Will it even survive?

Most likely.  It means they were not far down the road to laying workers and they were still wanting a queen.  At that point they will even settle for a drone egg to try to raise a queen, but you gave them what they REALLY wanted (and needed).

> Do I go ahead and introduce a new queen since they decided on their own that they needed one?

If you have a queen, that is one option.

>Do I let whatever is in that cell hatch, or do it cut it off?

If you are introducing a queen, I would remove the cell.  If you are going to let them raise a queen, leave it.

> Is it even possible for that cell to actually contain a queen in that situation? I have never heard of this happening.

Is it on the frame of worker eggs you gave them?  If so, then it is a legitimate queen.
My website:  bushfarms.com/bees.htm en espanol: bushfarms.com/es_bees.htm  auf deutsche: bushfarms.com/de_bees.htm  em portugues:  bushfarms.com/pt_bees.htm
My book:  ThePracticalBeekeeper.com
-------------------
"Everything works if you let it."--James "Big Boy" Medlin

Offline ajneal30

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #28 on: May 09, 2013, 08:01:00 pm »
So good news, We have beginnings of queen cells in the other two hives with the laying workers. We will check once a week or so to see if they cap them or not. Fingers crossed that this is it and they have decided to straighten up.

On a side note, is there any reason why a purchased queen (or four) would just fly away as soon as the bees release her from the queen cage? This problem occured when package bees did not accept a queen or maybe she just took off. Even the replacement queens have been hit or miss. We installed one of the replacement queens into a queenless hive without a laying worker, one in a new nuc with some nurse bees, and made a two queen hive with the other. I just needed a place to put them until the hives with the laying workers figured things out. The queen in the nuc was released and is just gone. The queen in the queenless hive is still in the queen cage but should be released soon. The queen in the two queen hive has been released and is doing great. So four out of ten queens have just disappeared. Any suggestions on why this might have happened?

Offline don2

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #29 on: May 10, 2013, 12:13:18 am »
Sounds like it is possible you ended up with a "Virgin" Queen  and she may have went on a mating flight and didn't make it back. Does your Bee suppler guarantee a mated Queen? just a thought.  :) d2

Offline ajneal30

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #30 on: May 11, 2013, 04:53:59 pm »
Ok, things are finally looking up. All of the hives with laying workers are either queenright or have capped queen cells with the exception of the first hive to have a problem. I gave them another frame today that had everything from brand new eggs to emerging brood. They seemed really excited to see the new brood and immediatly started grooming them. Hopefully that means they are ready to turn one of these new eggs into a new queen. Even our nuc (who's queen flew away as soon as they released her from the queen cage) has a capped queen cell.

I only have two hives I am woried about right now. The one with the laying worker and one with a really slow weird acting queen. That hive has two supersedure cells almost ready to capp though so I am going to let them do what bees do and hope they can turn one of them into a good prpductive queen.

Thanks for all of the help and good advice. I will keep you all updated on how this is progressing.

Offline ajneal30

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Re: young queen or laying worker
« Reply #31 on: July 08, 2013, 11:09:32 pm »
They all straightened out with the exception of one stubborn hive. I finally shook the last frame of mostly drone bees.

 

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