Drone laying queen fix without buying a queen

[@rodneymiddleton9624]

Glad you caught it early !!! Thanks!!

[@sweetstingers]

Yes I hate dealing with laying workers.

[@rodneymiddleton9624]

@@sweetstingers I will shake them out and put away their box so they have to find a new home in other colonies. Thanks!

[@sweetstingers]

@Rodney Middleton I place a Queen Excluder on top of a strong hive and place the laying workers on top of that. Box and all the stronger hive will protect their queen and remove and kill the laying workers. Then split back off 2 weeks later if I want

[@rodneymiddleton9624]

@@sweetstingers That works. I have a single screen board that I use sometimes. It’s hard to find time to do the longer processes. Thanks!

[@jimhughes6794]

Aren’t you worried about all those drone cells bringing a lot of mites into the new hive. If you have not done a mite check on that hive, please do one and then check it again in a couple of weeks and see how many mites you have in that hive. Thanks

[@sweetstingers]

No I am not worried about it at all. Almost all of our colonies have drone frames in them some have 2. Drones are very beneficial to colonies. We are also a treatment free company

[@hrlsswndr3938]

@@sweetstingers What do you do if you do see a high mite count on your bees in that case?

[@sweetstingers]

@Hrlsswndr we will split it down and kill off the queen or give her away. She's not good for us but for many others she is just fine. Let them go through a brood break then rejoin and requeen or requeen the splits and grow other colonies.

[@sweetstingers]

@Hrlsswndr I'm not worried about high mites I'm more looking for the diseases. Viruses are the main factor not necessarily the mite count. We test for hygienic behavior with a prick test

[@hrlsswndr3938]

@@sweetstingers is that test something an amateur beekeeper could do? Do you have a video on it, it'd be great to see how it's done if so!

[@russellkoopman3004]

Since you didn't find the queen, but they were making a queen cell, what are the odds that they will fix themselves? 50/50?

[@sweetstingers]

My guess is they killed her off already. They had a few queen cells. But I tore them all down. I would say the odds are 50/50. I looked twice through the colony and never seen her. So she either got killed or she was a little queen. They were definitely trying to fix it. Some colonies won't do anything and for those colonies the queen has to be found and killed and then a mated queen introduced. Some colonies are just plain stubborn. When I go back I will give an update. My guess is though they will fix themselves at least this colony will

[@Goch46]

The odds are close to nil. The eggs were infertile so queen cell content was a drone too

[@russellkoopman3004]

@@Goch46 Peter, he put a frame of eggs from another hive into there for them to make a good queen. He marked that frame. I was thinking that the dud queen may give off enough pheromones so as the hive doesn't raise a replacement queen.

[@sweetstingers]

@Peter ama Goch yes. That's why we added a new fresh frame from another colony. They should build cells on that frame and we will come back and destroy any other cells not on that frame they built out. Let the fertil eggs become the new queen

[@sweetstingers]

@Russell Koopman she could but I don't think it will be the case with this one. Since they are already building cells they are wanting to replace or know something is wrong. But yes drone laying queens the colony will act like it's queened right technically it is just laying duds and will kill introduced queens. That's why we kill off the queen. In this case though I think they already took care of her. Will know in about a week