Queen from worker egg

[Cheryl]

Good to see everyone playing nice. 

...OP would never want to instigate an argument... 

(Sorry guys, I'm extremely jaded.)

[kathyp]

arguments can be instructive  .  in this case, i think we are all on the same page more or less, but explain it a bit differently. 

[Michael Bush]

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#maleeggsinroyalcells
http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#onlymaleeggs

[doak]

I may be jumping the gun because I have not finished reading the complete article.

I got far enough to realize It appears that he assumed an egg laid is an egg fertile.
He had not yet learned that the queen is capable of determining which she wants to drop into the cell.
We all know that an unmated queen can lay eggs, just like the unmated chicken/hen can.
Sorry but I'm not buying the fact that just because a few extra drops of pap were accidentally
dropped into the cell that it produced the laying workers.
didn't he know fertile eggs came from mating and wasn't created from pap.
When a colony becomes queen less and there isn't any eggs/larvae to feed, what then?
On another note, I have never heard of a colony developing laying workers in just a few days.
I left one queen less for 42 days once, the new queen I gave them was out of the cage in 3 days
and laying like a pro.
Guess I need to finish reading the article.
?doak

[iddee]

Doak, you need to read a lot of Joelel's posts. Some sound like a pro, others like a complete novice. He is just baiting for an argument. He joined just after Sgt. Major was banned.

Read between the lines.

[Cheryl]

read a lot of Joelel's posts. Some sound like a pro, others like a complete novice. He is just baiting for an argument. He joined just after Sgt. Major was banned.

Read between the lines.

Yes. This is also what I was getting at, in a sideways manner.

edit: The links that Michael posted are from a very OLD publication by François Huber (1750-1831) published 1806 (Written 1787-1791).

I love reading the old stuff!  

[Natalie]

One of his first posts was that he and his son know a better way to do everything than the rest of all us beekeepers (as in he invented the screened inner cover) and he told another member to go ahead and ask him anything and he will tell him what to do yet he is asking all these questions like he knows absolutely nothing. Which is it?

[Michael Bush]

>I may be jumping the gun because I have not finished reading the complete article.
>I got far enough to realize It appears that he assumed an egg laid is an egg fertile.

In Hubers terminology (18th century translated from French to English) "fertile" simply means it's capable of developing.  The whole haploid, diploid thing was not mapped out until after DNA was discovered.  You did see that he wrote this in 1789?

>He had not yet learned that the queen is capable of determining which she wants to drop into the cell.

No one did until two hundred years later.

>We all know that an unmated queen can lay eggs, just like the unmated chicken/hen can.

Ahhh exactly.  And unfertilized chicken eggs don't develop.  But the unfertilized bee egg does.  The concept at that time was that a "fertile" egg was one that develops and an "unfertile" egg was one that does not.

>Sorry but I'm not buying the fact that just because a few extra drops of pap were accidentally
dropped into the cell that it produced the laying workers.

That's not his point.  His point is that WHEN a laying worker develops it's more likely one that was developing next to a queen cell.

>didn't he know fertile eggs came from mating and wasn't created from pap.

At the time Huber did his research many still thought the queen was a king and no one knew that the queen mated outside the hive, nor that a late mated queen would lay only drones.  Pretty much everything we now know about bees, he discovered with the exception of the DNA things that were much more recent.

>When a colony becomes queen less and there isn't any eggs/larvae to feed, what then?

Then workers develop ovaries as Huber proved.

>On another note, I have never heard of a colony developing laying workers in just a few days.

A broodless hive can develop laying workers in as short as 10 days.  Of course if you remove the queen there is still open brood for another 9 days or so so that stretches to 19 days or so of queenlessness.

[Michael Bush]

The observation that bees will build queen cells for drone eggs is a valid observation that I have made myself many times in laying worker mating nucs.  My point was that it has been observed and documented for the last 222 years.

[Joelel]

After all the differences on this thread  I think I'll stick with the bee school.


http://202.78.240.57/courses/beekeeping1.0/only_drone_brood.html
Only Drone Brood

When you inspect your hive, if you have only drone brood then you have a problem that must be fixed.  Drones do not do any work in the hive.  You need worker bees to care of the larvae and make the honey.   If your hive is not producing worker bees, then it will become weak quickly. The colony will die.

There are 2 possible reasons for having only drone brood in your hive:

1. Poor or Old Queen: Sometimes when your queen gets old she is no longer a good egg layer. Sometimes she has used all the sperm she got on her mating flight. Then she will only lay drone brood.

Sometimes a new queen will not get mated properly. She will not have enough sperm.  Again, this means she will only lay drone brood.  In both cases you need to re-queen your hive (topic 14) to solve this problem.

2. Laying Worker:  Sometimes, when a hive loses their queen one or more worker bees may begin to lay eggs.  This can cause a serious problem.  The eggs that a worker lays are not fertilised. The worker has not mated with drones.  She has no sperm.  She will lay only unfertilised eggs. Unfertilised eggs can only hatch into drone bees.  a hive full of drone bees will not do very well.  There will be no worker bees to do all of the work that is needed to keep the hive going.  After a while the hive will die out.  

 
When you go to your hive and see only drone brood, this is a sign that you may have a laying worker.  Another sign that a worker is laying eggs in your hive is if you see more than one egg in some of the cells.

This is a very difficult problem to fix. The bees think they have a queen. They will not accept a new one. There may be more than one laying worker in a hive.  If you could find and kill the laying worker(s) then you could introduce a new queen.  The laying worker does not look any different from a normal worker.  It is difficult to know which worker (s) is laying.  So unless you see her laying an egg, you will not be able to recognize which worker is trying to be queen.

Uniting the laying worker hive with a queen right hive over a sheet of newspaper sometimes works.  It is a bit risky.  The workers from the laying worker hive might throw out the real queen, instead of the laying worker.

Another way to fix this problem is to carry the hive about 20 or 30 meters away from its place and brush all of the bees out onto the ground.  Take the empty equipment and frames back to their spot and set them up again.  The laying worker(s) cannot fly and will not be able to get back to the hive.  The rest of the bees will return to the hive and then you can try to:

introduce a new queen or capped queen cell
<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->unite it with a queen right hive
<!--[if !supportLists]--> <!--[endif]-->give the colony a frame of eggs and larva so bees can raise a new queen.


Also read here

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

[kathyp]

i'm a little confused about the point you are trying to make?

ok.  you have a laying worker hive.  what is your plan?  YOUR plan?  it's been a bit.  you probably should have executed it by now. 

[Joelel]

i'm a little confused about the point you are trying to make?

ok.  you have a laying worker hive.  what is your plan?  YOUR plan?  it's been a bit.  you probably should have executed it by now. 

Shake the hive and introduce a queen.

[BjornBee]

I always combine. That old thing about shaking bees fails for me. Like a laying worker can not fly. Yeah right!  NOT!

If the queenright hive being combined with is not strong enough to protect the queen (like when adding two deep hive bodies full of drone laying workers and adding a nuc size colony....like you couldn't see that coming a mile away)), then protect her by caging the queen with a push-in cage where she can still lay and perform without being harmed. Her pheromones will quickly shut the laying workers down.

I've wasted half a summer in the past shaking bees, adding frames, etc. For me, laying worker colonies go on top of a queenright colony. Then you can break them back apart in a few weeks. Normally much less time then the beekeeper adding another frame of brood, or waiting for his second queen to arrive in the mail after the bees have killed the first queen after thinking laying workers will be left in the grass after shaking them.

[kathyp]

shake the hive and let them return to the same hive and try to requeen?  my bet is that you'll lose the queen.  better to shake the hive and forget about it.  guess if you don't mind eating the 20 some dollars for a new queen, it's something to try.

then protect her by caging the queen with a push-in cage where she can still lay and perform without being harmed

that will work if you give it enough time.  that's where that requeening frame comes in.  if you shake the hive, you can't let them return to the same hive.  you have to let them join others.

[iddee]

>>>>The laying worker(s) cannot fly and will not be able to get back to the hive.  <<<<

Please, Please, Please, Take a photo of the laying workers on the ground where you shake them out. I don't think I have ever seen a photo of laying workers, positively identified as such. The photos themselves should be quite valuable.

           

[Jim 134]

Doak, you need to read a lot of Joelel's posts. Some sound like a pro, others like a complete novice. He is just baiting for an argument. He joined just after Sgt. Major was banned.

Read between the lines.

Doak ...


     Joelel's 82 posts in 11 day

        BEE HAPPY Jim 134  

[BjornBee]

82....

I had 117....

Amateurs!

[Joelel]

Yelp sure enough,We shook the hive,3 days later on 7/2 introduced a queen,9/5 pulled the plug and 2 days later she was out laying and had a half a frame laid.