What's Wrong With My Bees? - Drone Laying Queen
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 เม.ย. 2021
- What's Wrong With My Bees? - Drone Laying Queen
If you have a colony that isn't performing you often ask yourself the question, 'What's wrong with my bees?' In this video, this issue is a drone laying queen, probably as a result of a poor late summer mating.
If you think you have a poorly mated queen then it will likely show up as a drone laying queen early in the season.
Drone laying queen or laying workers is a good question to ask and will be evident by the number of eggs in the cells. Laying workers lay numerous eggs in a single cell so that can be discounted.
Shaking out drone laying queens is my preferred method of manipulation as it save adding resources from other hives to try and help the colony recover.
In this video I take a look inside a strong colony with a DLQ - drone laying queen.
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Great video, Lawrence full of information. This is my first year as a new bee keeper. These videos are so helpful to me I'm learning so much. A very big thank you for sharing your expertise. 👍
Cheers John and THANK YOU for being a channel member! Glad you the find the videos useful :D
Great video as usual 🐝🐝 Unfortunately I’ve had 2 colonies turn drone layer this year.
Yes drone layer are problem sometimes you cant predict they happened at any time
Another great video Laurence, did you find the queen or was it not necessary ?
Hey Ross. Ideally you find and squish her, but I couldn't find her. She may have died and they turned laying worker. I just shake them out. Guard bees will dispatch a foreign queen if she tries to enter another hive.
I have a hive I thought was good, opened up today and I have 10 frames full of drone brood, I've removed the 2 middle frames and added eggs, but after watching if they don't make a new queen I will shake the bees out and maybe melt the frames
Sounds very much like a DLQ. Good luck with the fix
I had this only once. Also i Have difrent hives. Colony with drone queen i Have shaken infront of apiary and in the same spot i have put my other hive on 10 frames...with good queen ofcourse...the bees flew into this colony and boost it...
yes - never waste the bees unless its just all drones
Great bunch of bees! Sorry about the drone layer! So you gonna give them frames with eggs to make new queen? Don't you combine it with other hive?
We just shake them out. You can add frames or mated queens but we prefer to shake out and them make up the numbers later in the year. Both valid processes though. Combines are a good way to boost a weak hive. Maybe I will do that for the next vid :)
Thanks Laurence, by the way how do you deal with the frames, especially the ones with the old drone brood, ta so much.
If its just a little drone brood we recycle them to the edge of nucs/colonies where they store honey. If they are really bad they are then melted down.
I'm definitely with you shakeout is the only way in fact I did 1 today
Unite the bees to another colony would have been the right way to go.
Sorry pal but I breed for quality if it's not up to scratch it's gone
This is in effect what I have done. Just spread the bees around to boost others.
Hi Laurence - just done an inspection and it was just like your buddy - drone brood everywhere and tons of bees!
Couldn’t find the queen in spite of four passes through the frames.
I know I have to find her and dispatch as the colony is doomed without a new queen. Got too cold to carry on.
There was what looked very much like a supercedure cell, just one in the middle of a frame and longer than a swarm or emergency cell.
Could they create a supercedure cell from a DLQ’s egg?
They often create what look like supercedure cells are drone layers but there is nothing in them. No harm in letting it go but I doubt anything will emerge
It was much longer than the many drone cells and in its own. Fingers crossed!
@@simoncollins917 Yeah fingers crossed for you but I have seen it a few times. Its a real desperate attempt to requeen
@@BlackMountainHoney hi - if I find the DLQ and dispatch her, will then adding a frame of eggs work or is that not a successful route? A local beekeeper might have some virgin queens available next weekend, and with the weather turning nice could be good timing
Help me to understand something here please. If the workers draw out the comb with large cell patterns then the Queen lays a drone egg. If it is small cell pattern then she lays worker eggs. How can you be sure it is the queen fault when all she has to lay in is drone cells?
very rare for a colony to just draw out drone comb. Especially in the centre of the frames. The drone laying queens deposit infertile drone eggs into worker comb so give that distinctive bumpy pattern
Don’t you find the bees return to where their hive was and stay there looking miserable ☹️