Layens Hive Inspection; Drones, Drones, Drones | June 19th, 2022

Peeking into the Layens Hive for the first time this season to see what its queen status is. Incredible amount of drones discovered.

[@PAPSROYALAPIARY]

One of the most viable explanation why you ended up with so many drones in that hive, based on my observation, is that you might have a new queen in there, you pulled a lot of frames with old brood color but I didn't see any fresh capped brood or didn't hear you mentioning of seing larvae or eggs, especially in the last couple frames you pulled out, I would assume that those larvae/eggs frames wouldn't be the last two you didn't pull out; so with that said, either it was a peaceful transfer of generational queens in progress or you just happen to get in this hive about the time the new queen came back from mating, and I believe to be the later option since you got so many drones hanging around, as not all will swarm with the original queen and the new queen unintentionally invited a lot of drones on her way back from mating; I do like your long layens box, I wonder how do you spin the honey out of it? Happy beekeeping. Dan

[@beebob1279]

Two thoughts on your drone issue. One, you have a new queen. She was laying drone until she got 'organized'. Two, there are beekeepers who put bait comb on the ends of their hives (foam hives) and harvest the drone when they cap over the frames. It could be your queen laid a group of drones and then stopped laying on the ends of the brood area. I've enjoyed your videos so far. However, one tip. Dump the Apivar. Mites are now resistant to the chemical.

[@willowbeesnaturally]

Wow thank you, I’m on my third year with Layens. Your content is so helpful😊

[@dtomfohrde]

I’m guessing you caught them at peak drone season. With the foundation less frames, they can make as many as they want. Michael Bush says drones can be 20+% of the colony. When compared with other colonies, where drone comb is limited, it probably seems like many more drones.

[@stokedonearth5097]

Sounds to me like your Queen wasn't mated properly in the beginning.

[@bradleybeaumier191]

How peculiar about all those drones. Did you see large patches of drone brood? I really guessed you were going to run into a laying worker scenario at first, but glad to see you have a queen in there.

[@bkcorner]

I pretty much pulled every frame during the inspection and while some of them had pataches of comb for drone brood, the general impression was that it was not overly laden with drone comb and I didn't see any drone brood in progress.

[@gregw3437]

You know - you don't have to push all the frames back after done looking. Just simply insert the follower board from the other end.

[@evonnewhalen9794]

I would guess no queen plus a worker bee laying

[@runningdogapiary5009]

Any eggs or fresh larvae?

[@bkcorner]

Yes, there was brood in all stages on some of the frames.