Laying Worker? Here's The Fix Don't Miss This

[@brettwillbornsr.8437]

I had a laying work nuc. And I had another nuc that was just booming so I took a frame of open brood from the booming nuc and shook all the bees off. Took a frame from laying worker hive shook all the bees off and put them in the opposing nuc . I did this once a week for 3 weeks . And on the 3rd week the laying worker nuc formed 6 queen cells . A month later I have a queen right nuc. It was awesome to see the laying worker hive just cover the open brood frame . I mean running to it . I always put it in the middle and all the bees wanted on that frame. It was Awsome to wittness Just thought I would share . God Bless in the Name OF JESUS!.

[@mysticalsprings1998]

Watching my observation hive that went queenless there were about 200 laying workers in 4 frames of bees.

[@jamiemiddleton9546]

Thanks for your time David. I am a new bee keeper and you are one of the main reasons I took on this amazing hobby.

[@nenaelliott8058]

I'm totally flabbergasted David. As long as I've watched your channel and I thought that only the queen could lay eggs. See, you can teach old dogs new tricks. David, thanks for sharing your wisdom. 👍😘

[@livingstonsimmonds156]

With the wet brood and eggs your chance is very good great job I have another option as well that really works for me

[@MuskratOutdoors]

Only the queen's eggs are fertile. A laying worker has the instinct, but not the ability to keep the hive going. The bad thing is that since there are eggs, the other bees don't realize they need a new queen. If they realize the queen is gone, they can raise a fertile egg into a new queen.

[@nenaelliott8058]

@@MuskratOutdoors thanks for that explanation. That makes perfect sense.

[@MuskratOutdoors]

@@nenaelliott8058 You are welcome. Thank you.

[@joannaniedziaek8158]

@@MuskratOutdoors out of curiosity, the drones shall not be fertile? Meaning they won't be normal drones capable of mating with queens?

[@kevinjackson1840]

i did a very similar thing to my 5 hives too and yes it worked. i have only been keeping bees for a yr.

[@aanadyia4582]

Little more complicated if they’re large a large colony verse in a nuc, but great strategy, I’ve never seen it explained like this. I did a newspaper combine with my LWH and it worked great.

[@OklahomaBeekeeper]

Interesting, I never thought about that Mr.David Haught . I haven't had a laying worker in a couple of years thank goodness. But if I do I'm going to try this, thanks for sharing.

[@paulawaldrep3760]

Great tactic! Now if I can keep that trick in my head until I need it! Lol :)

[@thomasbinsted1873]

Thank you for the very informative video and tips. Your channel, along with those of the UoG Honey Bee Research Centre and the Norfolk Honey Company, is one of the foremost fonts of apiculture wisdom on KZbin. I have something of a conundrum which I hope you or another commenter can help with. I have a somewhat unlucky hive that came into 2020 very vigourously with a beautiful, solid brood pattern. Come April, the queen disappeared (not sure whether it was regicide or a beekeeper mishap) and things went downhill. First they lost their new virgin queen before being blighted with what thankfully transpired to be Sac Brood rather than EFB. Having shook swarmed them to try to reduce the Sac Brood viral load I am now left with laying worker(s) in residence due to the prolonged absence of a queen. With the threat of disease being a concern I am reluctant to transfer comb from this hive into adjacent healthy colonies. One idea I had was to try to create at least two nucs from this colony, placed side by side on the spot of the old hive. These nucs would have a frame of healthy, viable brood from said adjacent colonies and a ramp up to the entrances. All bees would then be shook out at the base of the ramp to ensure any nurse bees have a chance to return to the hives. Do you think the presence of the pheromones from the brood coupled with their attendant workers would be enough to suppress the laying worker and encourage the creation of emergency queen cells or do you think this is a waste of resources as the worker's laying instinct will be too strong?

[@strugglingbeekeepermarkcot9642]

I haven’t learned that yet David I still have a lot to learn about keeping bees thank you for sharing this video and as always have a great day.

[@tomkelly8827]

I had real problems with trying to get a laying worker hive to raise their own queen. I spent too much precious brood on that hive. Shook it out 3 times. half a mile away every time. This year I did something like what you are suggesting and it worked out beautifully! The original queen kept laying and I never noticed any signs of a laying worker again

[@RedHeadForester]

I don't keep bees (yet, maybe one day...) but your videos have some really interesting information covering things I didn't even know happened! Great stuff.

[@alaefarmestatesllc]

The new batch must’ve been really really good. Pure

[@steveholder7289]

Wish I'd seen this before. Found one of my four hives was laying worker a couple weeks ago. One of the four was a small swarm that I caught that had open brood. So I took the small queen-right hive and put it under the LW hive, with a single screen between, thinking that they would be able to exchange pheromones. Put a shim that had an entrance on top the screen with the entrance flipped around. That way field bees would come back into the bottom (queen-right) box. Went through it a week later and didn't see much sign of a laying worker, so I took the screen out and replaced with an excluder. Bees were much calmer, too. Right now I have three deep brood boxes on there. Later this week I'll pull one of the deeps, consolidate,and do another inspection. Hopefully it worked...

[@reggieringgoldjr68]

Great Video Brother, I really appreciate the Content and Information you put out.......👍🏾🤝🏾🇺🇸💪🏾

[@garyshaffer68]

What I do is move the laying worker hive to where there is a strong hive. And move the strong hive to where the laying worker hive was. Cage the queen for a day or two thats what works for me. The field bees going back to there old location will kill all the laying workers. Put in a queen leave the laying worker hive in new location.

[@Anonymous-zo3uu]

I fixed laying worker using similar steps. I took the original box to the middle of the field. Added 2 frames of open brood from another hive. I then put in a poor man's graft frame (JZBZ cells pushed into the foundation slot). Then, I shook off all the bees from the original box and filled up the rest of the hive with the clean frames. The old bees returned and a good amount of the laying workers died in the field. A couple weeks later, the queen they raised was laying well. No idea how reliable this is, but it did do the trick this time. My though is, the old bees were in a hive that thought everything was fine. When I put the frames of nurses and brood in, the old bees returned to find nurses making queenless roar. A state of engineered chaos that convinced them to get things back on track.

[@joedenton7023]

Great job on explanation as always , I’ve got several friends watching your videos ! Thanks for what you do!

[@StephenBiggers]

I've done something similar. I closed up laying worker at night and next morning move it to a strong hive and place on top using newspaper combine. The strong colony will destroy laying workers and they will reorient to new hive. I found that dumping out bees meant losing any nurse bees that are left over. Most hives have laying workers present at all times it is just the brood and queen pheromones that keep them in check. I have given up on trying to requeen hives that have already become laying worker hives.

[@mriley528]

I just did the same thing and I am crossing my fingers that they don’t kill my queen in the stronger hive below! Your comment makes me feel better about it

[@StephenBiggers]

@@mriley528 if the laying worker colony is stronger than the hive you are combining it with it might be an extra caution to put your queen in a cage while they are combining.

[@mriley528]

Stephen Biggers i can’t definitively say it wasn’t a drone queen. It was a 2 deep hive, I took the 10 best frames with resources and normal worker brood size cells, and shook some bees in. I left the frames with drone brood behind. The hive I put it on top of is a 5 frame nuc that is about 7-8 frames of bee coverage. I did the newspaper yesterday, so at this point I either started ww3, or it will be merged.

[@kat2641]

I am not a bee keeper( yet,) but your logic makes perfect sense to me... I raised an cross bread rabbits 1/2 my life an have moved kits from one nursing doe to another nursing doe... Yes everyone says they'll kill the introduced babies ..But done properly? I had a 90% success rate. My baby bro was in the bees for a few years but got out of it due to a super hard bad winter.( An I feel the mites weakens his hives going into winter) but back on subject here, I agree with your thought process an your proven success rate is testimony that it works. Thank you your advice will prove valuable over the next few years...I am retiring soon an need a job to keep me busy an the bees will fit the bill....

[@roycarter6235]

That is very well thought out. I will give it a go the next time I have this issue

[@danlieter5673]

It's never just one laying worker there are usually many.

[@Earth1977]

thanku David ..i also do same in my apiry,laying worker colony..thanks for your sharing have a good life.. happy honey..

[@CalliKira]

Thanks for the video! Have fun at the coffee chat!

[@richardkuhn8115]

Hi David. I have a colony with laying workers. Not sure what to do. The brood area is one deep 8 frame, & two medium 8 frame. I live in south central Pennsylvania. I don't want to lose a hive, but I also don't have an extra queen, and I doubt if there is time for the workers to raise a queen if given eggs & larvae, and her get mated. There still is a large amount of bees in the hive. Do you think my best bet is to Shake, combine using newspaper or ? I enjoy watching your videos & ordering stuff from your shop. This old man has a hard time sometimes understanding some of this stuff. Thanks and Blessings.

[@davidhaught84]

barnyardbees.com/product/queen-bee-shipped-by-date/

[@framcesmoore]

Good video David u did a good job thanks and have a good day

[@johnmoss6631]

You are talking about one laying worker in that one nuc box. Is it possible that there are numerous worker bees whom are laying at the same time? Or is it always just one laying worker per hive.

[@GS-st9ns]

You've got really good response time. Your view is a quite active and loyal. I'm new to this, so is nectar edible for humans consumption? It's hard to remember everything but it's also enjoyable

[@crunchy_dad]

Great idea! Thanks for the video!

[@richardkuhn8115]

Very interesting David. Thanks for sharing.

[@darkart-mr8wu]

Since you add the two frames of new brood can they make a queen on thier own

[@epleyscott86]

How many days after this should I introduce a queen , I ordered one from y’all on Monday and it will be her tomorrow

[@danielbuss942]

spray them down with surup they will not fight at all. then put a qween in right away just like a swarm works 100% no fail at try that Dave

[@noahriding5780]

Is there a target number of days, range etc for when you'd be watching for this 'laying worker' situation to appear in a queenless hive? It seems like if people had an idea of a # of days range for it to appear it might help have a better idea of its probability to occur. Your videos are wonderful. Even going back so much to learn.

[@walterneely8411]

David, FYI I have had a huge shb problem this year and was really getting worried, I have tried all methods to combat them that I have seen on KZbin, they work some what for a while but nothing great. I saw you talking about the beetle guard that goes over the entrance and thought well here is something else to get my money and I ordered 2. I only have one hive at this time so I can watch them close. I could see them (shb) fly and land near the guard but would soon disappear I was sure there was not a crack for them to get in but I was still worried. I went out this morning to do an inspection and blew smoke onto the entrance then turned around to put smoker down and that took a little less than a minunite, when I turned back to the hive the front of it was covered with shb, there must have been a 100 or so that's when it hit me as to what was going on, the bees were keeping them under the lip of the guard and not letting them get out, when I smoked the bees they ran and that released the shb to run. my point is it is great to see when something really works, most of the time you have to just guess as to how much something helps. These things WORK! Thanks for all of your helpful videos

[@johnward3946]

If you have a hive with laying workers and you put resources in to make new queen and they succeed in making a new, mated Queen will the hive accept the new queen or will the laying workers kill the new mated Queen?

[@nancyogg855]

You have to get rid of all the open brood (eggs, larvae & unsealed brood cells. It's the brood pheremone that tells the workers they're queenright. And wait at least 16 hours for the pheromone to dissipate. And then add a frame of eggs AND one of house bees, so there will be a source of royal jelly to make the queen.

[@charlesgolden1418]

I don't see a link for ordering nuc's on your website. Could you post a direct link for us?

[@stackingforfun9216]

I have done the same !! Mostly with success but had failed end result here in my client

[@annazhirnova5916]

Can I mix one frame from worker laying hive with 4 frames that have not hatched queen cell with brood and nursing bees?

[@richardhamey7376]

Nothing with bees is a 100% when working with bees as you said. This is exactly what I do, but you must do a very close inspection before you move the frames. Some of these folks are newer beekeepers so one caution worth mentioning, David probably instinctively looks for issues every time he opens a hive just as I do. Make sure you understand where the mite load is on the laying worker hive, because just by the nature of it’s predicament it can be in the midst of a mite crash. May need to treat for mites, eliminate the hive beetles and look closely for any signs of virus like deformed wing.

[@awwaldo]

Is that a wasp sneeking in? 2nd frame from the right at the 10:00 minute mark.

[@mrmozaffari]

Hi and thanks for all of these videos. Can you please make a video about Chalkbrood and how to identify and treat it? Also one of my two frames nuc got massive infestation of moth and disgusting larva which I had to pull the frames out and lost that colony, I watched your videos about that but they are mostly cover the beetles issue. Thank you!

[@yvonneturner5505]

Is laying worker same as a drone layer

[@steverochon1620]

This is the most convoluted explanation I’ve ever heard, and I understand the process you’re trying to explain. You must get paid by the word.

[@Mkangur2]

Nice tip! I didn't know that.

[@leahclewley3942]

I believe you could also combine that Nuc with a mature 8 frame hive. I put a piece of newspaper in between the two colonies and the bees in the mature hive will overwhelm the bees in the Nuc and kill the laying worker.

[@RhaineEDaize]

How does a worker bee just decide to be a pseudo queen. Are they picked?

[@Apurho]

Open brood pheromone actually suppresses the workers' ovaries. But when there's no open brood, the workers' ovaries begin to develop. And due to not being able to mate, they can lay only drones.

[@simonblackburn6748]

Fascinating stuff!

[@roger4909]

What if your new only have one hive?

[@heatherh3650]

What if I only have one hive? Do I dump all the bees in the field and put empty new frames in and make them start over on drawing out comb?

[@joannaniedziaek8158]

I'm not sure it's gonna work since laying workers may still come back to your hive. But I'm just learning to become a beekeeper, so I might be wrong.

[@ME_MeAndMyBees]

If you have worker bees laying, in only x1 Hive its Queenless !!! No eggs or Larvae to rescue it... Unless you buy a Queen, or get a frame of open Brood from a fellow Beekeeper, or Bee Club.... Even a Queen Cell (!) Don't know if you could catch a swarm (odds of 😱) and remove everything frame and Bee wise, from that laying Hive... Add new Comb frames, food and pollen, add that Queen, or Queen Cell, and /or open Brood. Shake all those 'laying bees' back into the hive. This should solve things.... 😏 * Worker laid frames should be removed, then put in the Freezer, they can be thawed out one at a time. Be given back to the colony 'as a source of protein' as they 'clean out' those dead eggs and larvae (!) Hope this helps.... 🐝

[@gohawaiioutfitters]

When I open up my hive it's like their dive bombing my suit. There are some drone brood but mostly worker brood. My other hive is super calm. Should I introduce another queen?

[@kavindrasinghthapa3897]

Dear David could you please tell me there is a worker laying queenless colony with me , i shook them thrice , 3 times , still thease bees are laying multiple eggs , Kindly give me some good solution. Thanks

[@dwainday7460]

I know nothing can’t help me start a bee hive here in the north west punesula of Washington st

[@larrytornetta9764]

What happened to the original queen in the laying worker hive? If the queen died why didn’t they make a new queen?

[@gotskinn]

Do you think bees recognize certain humans? I swear they flock to me when I feed them. I just feed wild bees twice a day to keep them from my hummingbird feeders.

[@joannaniedziaek8158]

From what I've heard from beekeepers they're very smart in memorizing the source of food. I've heard they will even check you up regularly whether you have food for them or not.

[@gotskinn]

@@joannaniedziaek8158 yeah.. they do. They come to my window & buzz me! I got my first hive in May...its like nothing I have EVER experienced. I love them so much. I tend them in flip flops & shorts, bare hands & no veil. They buzz all around me & its kinda scary...& they drop wet stuff on me (poo?) But they havent stung me yet. My mom came to see the hive & they stung HER. They totally recognize people. Its like a drug for me. Incredible experience. I am so glad I got bees.

[@joannaniedziaek8158]

@@gotskinn So, so, so jealous, I wish I had hive too. Always wanted an observation hive.... Even now I can go watching bee videos for hours. Still it's weird they stung your mom unless you have more protective race. Honeybees usually are gentle enough not to sting. Maybe she approached the hive from bee entrance?

[@joannaniedziaek8158]

And wonder what the wet stuff is too, maybe indeed poo ;)

[@gotskinn]

@@joannaniedziaek8158 she got excited she found the queen & pointed at her. She deserved it. I feel bad I didnt warn her how protective they are of the queen. I just didn't think. I go throught the hive once a week...its the BEST. My husband put a wireless camera on them & I can see them anytime I want....even at work.

[@v-gc7257]

Cool.

[@junkinjodi]

I watched one of Joe Mays videos and he did the very same thing David.

[@dwainday7460]

I want to start bee keeping can u help me start

[@shannon6815]

Sucks I had to sell my bees. I live in a trailor park so my hives were close to my trailor. About a year later once they got established they got a little big and wife was scared to go outside. Along with fear that kids playing in the park might wander off into our yard and get into some trouble. So I sold my bees until I can get moved out of this park and get my own place. I do plan on getting big again as I think they are some of the coolest insects on the planet. Thanks to Barnyard bees in other KZbin channels I can still get my honey be fixed LOL. Of course it ends up making me want my BF back even more so it's kind of like a double-edged blade.

[@Mylife-op6wx]

Hi

[@SuperBuickregal]

3rd in comment and 4th liked!

[@timothycollinsguitar9450]

Why aren’t they stinging you?

[@jmfong76]

Timothy Collins Guitar, generally at some point before he works on his hives, he has his smoker out and smokes the hive to keep them more docile. This allows him to check things out and make changes.

[@kareno8634]

OH Jeez ~ This is getting confusing! SO Much to know - I haven't even gotten past Wax Moths. Looks like, no matter what, Move a Bar to Different Hive, That will get them Cleaned and\ or Laying Worker Killed. HELP Please me understand Bees and note if my 'ideas', [thought] are right. . . . > Yrs. have 'wild' Bees in North front porch Outer wall - most sun. 1- New 'Swarm' moved into Owl Box, South backyard - Shaded. < 8 mon.[?] Bees left - *box FILLED with Wax Moth Larva > because of shade??* 2 - New 'Swarm' (6mon.[?]) Built Nest in Sunny (NE) 5' Shrubbery at 3' height - and Growing Down and Wide.

[@sowhitney]

why would a worker bee start laying? who does she think she is? there's only one queen around these parts! lol

[@charlesgolden1418]

First