Who feeds her majesty?

[Mosti]

Right, that. Who feeds the queen? Is it only nurse bees? Will workers do it?

I am asking because I am planning to introduce a laying queen to a hive that has been queenless for a couple or 3 weeks and I am assuming that the number of nurse bees will be limited.

[brooksbeefarm]

Worker bees can convert to any job that needs to be done, they've done it all before. Jack

[Jen]

That is such a cool system. The bees are born and learn everything they need to know to operate a hive, then they are turned out to forage, then if the hive needs more worker bees, some of the bees just go back and pick up where they left off.

[Jen]

Hey Mosti, I just re-queened a hive that had no queen for a very long time. You might want to read this thread, I learned A LOT!

http://www.worldwidebeekeeping.com/forum/index.php/topic,4062.0.html

[efmesch]

To answer our question, I would suggest a simple experiment:  Take a queen and place her in a cage with different "developmental statge" bees and see if they feed her.
Easier said than done.  But in truth, if you've caged queens over the years, most likely you've taken worker bees of various stages.   From my experience, any bees placed with a queen will feed her (except for drones--those lazy good for "almost" nothings).  If she extends her ligula in search of food,  any bee will respond affirmatively.

[Mosti]

Thank you for the reassuring replies 

[Perry]

To answer our question, I would suggest a simple experiment:  Take a queen and place her in a cage with different "developmental statge" bees and see if they feed her.
Easier said than done.  But in truth, if you've caged queens over the years, most likely you've taken worker bees of various stages.   From my experience, any bees placed with a queen will feed her (except for drones--those lazy good for "almost" nothings).  If she extends her ligula in search of food,  any bee will respond affirmatively.

Great, now I gotta google "ligula". 

[tbonekel]

I would also say that a swarm trap is a good example of bees changing jobs. As the forager bees come out of the mother hive to forage, they come back and because of the cone, are forced to enter the trap. There are no nurse bees in the trap. The foragers then have to change to care for the eggs and brood that are in the trap that need care. Make sense?

[Mosti]

I would also say that a swarm trap is a good example of bees changing jobs. As the forager bees come out of the mother hive to forage, they come back and because of the cone, are forced to enter the trap. There are no nurse bees in the trap. The foragers then have to change to care for the eggs and brood that are in the trap that need care. Make sense?

Makes a lot of sense I'd say!

[G3farms]

And the bees that are left inside of the old hive that is being trapped out have to grow up a little faster and become forager bees, at least until they can not get back into the old hive and are drawn into the trap out hive where they can revert back into their previous position.

I have also seen on trap outs the forager bees coming back to the cone and passing nectar to worker bees through the wire cone. I also witnessed this on a cut out I did several years ago on a screened in porch.