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Author Topic: Laying worker (?) replacement  (Read 2902 times)

Offline Rabbitdog

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« on: June 06, 2006, 09:30:10 pm »
I have a rather strong colony (to this point, anyway) that now appears to have a laying worker.  I found plenty of brood in all stages.  That which is capped is entirely drone brood.  I didn't think at the time to look at the eggs for multiple eggs in each cell, but I did notice eggs on 2 frames and nothing stood out to me as abnormal.
So here's the question.  I have a nuc with a laying queen right beside this particular hive.  Can I simply do a newspaper combine of the nuc and the queenless hive?  
I guess my concern is that the queenless hive may recognize their laying worker(s) as a queen and ball my nuc queen.  This would make me   :x .
Any thoughts?
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Offline Finsky

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« Reply #1 on: June 06, 2006, 09:49:51 pm »
When  you have laying workers , they may be tens or hundreds. Bees start to lay when they are very desperate without queen and brood.

If you give normal brood frame to them to raise a queen cells, worker layers disapear. When they cap their emercengy queen cells it is safe to give new laying queen.

Offline newguy

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« Reply #2 on: June 07, 2006, 12:13:28 am »
rabbitdog
 i had this same situation two weeks ago, here is what i did:
  i picked up the queenless hive and took it about 70-80 yds away and brushed off ALL the bees onto the ground, one frame at a time.  i placed the hive back in its place and put another super on top of that for the nuc frames, with a piece of news paper in between the boxes, then covered them up.  you will need to provide a top entrance for the nuc bees. within two days all was fine.  this is the procedure a professional beekeeper outlined for me, although he doesnt dump the bees. this is what worked for me the one and only time i have had this problem.
 others on this forum say that they wouldnt risk the healthy hive in this situation, fearing that the laying worker hive can overwhelm the queen, and that this method works only half of the time. im not doubting what they say but i had good luck doing this and this pro that i talked to was very confident that this would work.

Offline Finsky

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« Reply #3 on: June 07, 2006, 12:56:18 am »
Quote from: newguy
rabbitdog
 i had this same situation two weeks ago, ...i talked to was very confident that this would work.


I have nursed bees 45 years and I have done that shaking method once 43 years ago and I noticed that it was awfull.

Every year I have mating nucs and laying workers. When queen disaper , nuc has no larvae, so it starts. Confidental or not but my advice work fine.

Offline Brian D. Bray

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« Reply #4 on: June 08, 2006, 12:38:21 am »
The main ideas behind the using a frame of eggs and brood is not to risk a queen.  It also answers the question of whether you have a laying worker or a new queen that hasn't started to lay yet.  If they build supercedure cells you know they were queenless and are raising a replacement from amoung the fertile eggs that were in the brood frame.
Getting rid of a laying worker can be very difficult.  Other times it seems easy.
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Offline Michael Bush

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« Reply #5 on: June 10, 2006, 12:47:03 am »
Laying workers have been discussed MANY times.  Many of those times were recently.  Try a search.
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Offline Finsky

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Laying worker (?) replacement
« Reply #6 on: June 11, 2006, 02:33:33 pm »

 

anything