what the heck...

[Lesli]

Today I opened hive one. It was the weaker nuc of the two I hived last week.

Well, we have lots of supercedure cells. We have lots of capped and uncapped brood. And we certainly have a laying worker, since there are multiple cells with multiple eggs.

A week ago, there was a laying queen, judging by the eggs.

I didn't think a laying worker would develop so fast! I still have healthy (I think?) uncapped brood.

So now I'm madly trying to order a queen.

[Mchero]

Never a dull momment with the bees eh?

RM

[Robo]

And we certainly have a laying worker, since there are multiple cells with multiple eggs.

Multiple eggs in a cell is not exclusive to a laying worker.   Young queens often lay mutliple eggs per cell.  I guess it could happen to a queen later in life too.  Perhaps that is why they are trying to supercede her.

I had one queen this spring that was laying 3 eggs in each cell,  when I checked back in a few weeks, she was fine. She was a Fall queen last year, that was fine then too.

Which ever it is (laying worker/failing queen), you must get rid of her before introducing your new queen, otherwise the new queen will be killed.

[Lesli]

Yeah. Nothing like a challenge 2 weeks into my beekeeping adventure!

[Lesli]

I checked hive one again today. I found the queen! However, I also still see multiple eggs in some cells. I'm assuming she's a dud. But at least now I can replace her without going through the whole laying worker thing.

Now, to find a supplier with queens on hand...

[Robo]

That's good news.  You found the problem early enough before it became a real issue.

The workers will remove the extra eggs/larvae from the cells,  so assuming she is not just laying drones, you will continue to have brood while you wait for your replacement queen and not dwindle.  Hopefully you destroyed all the supercedure cells,  you don't need to deal with any virgin queens when trying to introduce your new queen.  Especially virgins raised from your failing queen.

Don't destroy your queen until you have your new one in hand.  A failing queen is better than no queen, or a dead queen delivered in the mail.

[Lesli]

No, I left her alone. I destroyed the supercedure cells, but did see one largish cell that was open--not as big as I'd expect a queen cell to be, but bigger than usual.

So if this is a replacement queen, then she may just be young and will grow out of it. In any case, though, I'm going to replace her. The only queens I've found so far will take about two weeks to get here. If anyone knows of a good supplier with stock on hand, please let me know.

[bee bop]

I'll be interested to know if you find someone to ship you a queen.   One of my nucs turned out to be queenless.  I called to order a replacement queen and was told it is too warm to ship one.  Rather than continue searching, I stole a frame of capped brood, larvae, and eggs from another hive hoping nature would take its course.

I would much rather order a new queen and be sure things were moving right along with this hive.  I'm afraid if I open it to see if they are making a queen I may rip apart their much needed queen cells, so at this point I really don't know what is going on in this hive.

[Lesli]

Hey Bee Bop!
Beeworks will ship queens. They'll have them in a few days, I believe.
In the end, I didn't requeen. Jean at Beeworks suggested I wait because a new queen may lay 2-3 eggs at a time, but will "settle down." And she has. Beautiful brood pattern now, lots of happy eggs and larvae.