Drone laying queen?

[Mcedwar]

My first hive made it through the winter - so far. I think I may have a problem though. I can’t find the queen, and I can’t find any eggs,  I do have this mess if drone brood, and no capped worker brood. Lots of uncapped larvae still.


Do I need to wait and check again, or just order a new queen?  This is my only colony, so I can’t give them any fertile brood to make a new queen of their own.

[Bakersdozen]

If all you have is drones and no workers, they wouldn't take care of the addition of brood.  Drones make lousy nurse bees. It looks like you might have a laying worker.  That's a total pain in the neck. That happens when the queen dies or fizzles out and there is old eggs or no eggs for the queen to produce a new queen.  With the lack of queen pheromone present, a laying worker will start laying eggs.  The worker is unable to lay a fertilized egg, so all you get is drones.  If you get a new laying queen, you will have to do a shake out before introducing the new queen.  Acceptance of the new queen can be difficult because the pheromone levels are wacky.  Shaking the colony out far enough from the colony location will hopefully ensure the laying worker gets lost.

[Wandering Man]

Thanks for posing this question, mcedwar, and Thanks for posting this, B13. I’d heard they were a pain, but hadn’t heard what the solution might be.

[Mcedwar]

I had found a couple of YouTube videos on the topic, and of course, they are always accurate and complete - NOT!

It seems that it is very important to distinguish between “drone laying queen”, and the other possibility of “laying worker” or multiple laying workers.

[tecumseh]

you are correct that it is important to distinguish between a laying worker and a drone laying queen.  as far as how I do thing... in both cases I knock out the bees, squish the drone brood with the flat end of my hive tool and stack the equipment on a hive that needs the space.  a laying worker is largely the end of the road but a drone laying queen you can typically salvage. The process includes.... addition of frames of eggs and young larvae transferred into the hive,  you kill the queen and then insert a mated queen. You may (likely will) have to return on a regular bases and slap in frames of capped brood after the queen is accepted to pump up the population.  For me all of this requires too much time and expense which is why I toss in the towel and start over.

[apisbees]

With only the one hive and with it being not right with a good queen for some time, it is going to be hard to re queen the colony. you would be best to get a package and hive it then combine the colonies.

[Mcedwar]

I don’t know how long ago the problem started. Last weekend I shook the bees through a queen excluder into an empty 10 frame, and found a queen, but still no eggs. I marked the queen, and put her in a 5 frame with the drone brood, and several handfuls of bees.

I don’t know if the found queen was new, but I’m pretty sure I had a marked queen going into winter.

I waited a day and put a new mated caged queen in the 10 frame with the rest of the bees. 

[neillsayers]

Keep us posted. I'd like to hear how this works out. Good luck. 

[tecumseh]

I should add here a couple of details...

1) look in the cells to see how many eggs are in each cell.... this will give you a good indication if the condition is a laying worker or a drone laying queen. multiple eggs /cell = laying worker and 1 egg/cell = drone laying queen.

2) the condition of a laying worker is created by the lack of brood pheromone and NOT queen pheromone. Consequently this is why it takes about 3 weeks for laying workers to develop from an otherwise normal type of hive.

3) Guessing here.. often times it is difficult to get some hives with drone laying queens to replace or supersede the queen... this I suspect happens in hives headed by relatively younger queens who are still vigorous and still have a queen mandibular pheromone footprint to hold any existing population together.

[Mcedwar]

I checked today and the new queen is out of the cage and walking around. No eggs yet.

I couldn’t find the older queen in the NUC.

[Mcedwar]

I should add here a couple of details...

1) look in the cells to see how many eggs are in each cell.... this will give you a good indication if the condition is a laying worker or a drone laying queen. multiple eggs /cell = laying worker and 1 egg/cell = drone laying queen.

2) the condition of a laying worker is created by the lack of brood pheromone and NOT queen pheromone. Consequently this is why it takes about 3 weeks for laying workers to develop from an otherwise normal type of hive.

3) Guessing here.. often times it is difficult to get some hives with drone laying queens to replace or supersede the queen... this I suspect happens in hives headed by relatively younger queens who are still vigorous and still have a queen mandibular pheromone footprint to hold any existing population together.

I haven’t seen any eggs yet this spring.