Laying Worker... Now What? - PART 3
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ย. 2024
- I thought this series would end with the newspaper combine and everything would go back to normal... I guess I was wrong. This hive just doesn't seem to want a queen. I try one last thing to make them queen right but ultimately, this is not a happy ending.
Let me know what you would do in the comments!
This is a multi part series.
LAYING WORKER PART ONE:
• Laying Worker EPIC SAG...
LAYING WORKER PART TWO:
• Laying Worker Fixed! (...
Thank you for watching and commenting!!
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If you leave the balboa hive queenless, they almost certainly won’t make it through winter. Even if they make a queen at this point, then she successfully mates, and then she lays eggs, they will not build up enough, even as a nuc. I think you have two options. Either let the hive go knowing they will almost certainly not make it through the winter (new queen or no new queen), or shake the bees off away from the bee yard and then combine whatever returns to the hive with another hive. You’ve made great strides this year in creating new hives, this one just didn’t pan out. You shouldn’t feel bad, it’s expected that not all walk away splits will work out.
Game of Combs is the bomb
The reason most beekeepers shake out a laying worker hive is that those workers will stay aggressive toward any queen introduced. Shaking them and adding a frame of eggs once some bees return normally will save the hive. Hope you the best of luck with your experiment.
true... plus the worker pheromone is throwing off the bees .... they don't accept the new queen .... get rid of the worker brood
Jim, I was faced with the same situation last year. I ended up shaking the frames. The laying workers are typically house (nurse) bees, and they have not left the hive. I put a box back in the location of the hive, and the foragers returned. The house bees did not. How do I know this? I watched them clustered on my fence for about a week. :( I so wanted to rescue them, but I was not going to let them kill another queen. I would recommend shaking them off, a good distance from the hive and then do the nuc, newspaper combine. I think you will find this will be successful. Thanks for sharing your experiences with us. We learn, as you do, through all of our journeys! Take care, my friend.
Good advice, Paul
Here's a video of what you are describing. The bees were shaken out about 100 ft. from the hive, and a new queen was placed at the landing board entrance to greet them when they returned:
th-cam.com/video/6kjW8MMsypg/w-d-xo.html
(There is a followup video showing it was a success.)
Thanks, Paul!
I:d be Leary about dropping those rebel bees into another hive incase they pull their regicidal habits elsewhere.
PsychoticusRex dropping them onto a strong hive will be fine. They'll behave or die fast.
I agree this is sad, but you have done all that can be done for those bees. Recognize that the remaining bees are all mature. No nurse bees. They may just want to go forage, build supplies for a future that hive almost certainly does not have. There are several options still available. Let them forage, let them make honey, or whatever. I like your idea of one last hail Mary pass - to give them a frame of eggs. But with no nurse bees, it is probably a waste. However, I think it is something you need to do - or you will never know. Whatever you spend on it in bees and resources, you have to be willing to count them a loss with the rest of the hive if a miracle does not happen. So long as they are building anything, let them. When it changes to just consuming it will be time to release the bees.
If and when that happens, I suggest you take the old beekeepers advice. Take your bees away from the apiary, and dump them on the ground. You wont be doing it to young bees that cant fly back. you will be doing it to old bees who refuse a good queen. They have quit. Don't put their hive bodies and frames back where they can find them. Treat those like a dead out. Put them away securely for future hives to use. Or, give the resources to the new Queen (in a different location).
This new split you now have with the donated Queen - put your energy into her, use what you can get out of the old hive bodies and frames to help her get ready for winter. But don't take too much from your established hives, you know they will need whatever they can gather. I think your new Queen might be able to get ready for winter and survive if you do that for her. One last comment, since you are asking: I would give her at least 48 hours in the cage before release. Do not rush the candy. Take out the cork, let them eat their way to her. I think perhaps you watch for a good sign and then rush the release. But this is a case of using the candy as it was intended to be: a timed slow release. If it takes four days but they are feeding her - it wont be too long. They will be ready to treat her like a Queen. Without that happening even the split is a waste of time, the Queen, and resources your other hives may need. If you could pull this off it would be a silver lining.
No matter what happens you have to know you have done everything a person could do to save those bees. I have huge respect for you in this, as in all you have been sharing with us.
I certainly admire the effort invested in righting a dying hive. But at some point, during this trilogy, I was worried about the amount of frames being shaken into an essentially lost hive. Splitting this late in the season can be recovered with the Fall flow and the winter bees they will raise, but not as strong as if you'd left the Balboa hive alone and not borrowed bees from it. Start the Nuc, give the Queen a fighting chance with good bees, and invest energy in that. Shake off the frames away from the Queenless hive, and let the returning foragers gather resources which can be used for your New Queen. Additionally, I agree with Julie, don't rush the introduction of the queen in a Queenless hive, I saw this mistake made early in Vinofarm videos and seems it's still being made. Let them remove the fondant plug, even if it takes 4 days. It is possible to over-think nature.
The laying worker hive - with no more queen pheremones - may reactivate the laying worker. I'd shake the hive onto the grass *before* that has a chance to get started. You'll save the hive, because those who can fly will return, and will save you a lot of hassle in the meantime. Assume no viable eggs as this point, because anything the worker laid will be drone brood. Good luck!
My suggestion:
Shake the troubled hive out beyond the fence.
Put the new nuc box and new queen back where that box was.
Blamo, you have saved what bees you can be assured are OK from the troubled hive.
You are faced with a problem and used it as a learning experience we can all learn from. Well done either way✌️
"We're a strong independant hive that don't need no Queen!"
Vhale we should call it the Aussie hive. 😁
Or better yet the French Hive
-said no hive surviving a winter ever-
PsychoticusRex - Nuh, we love the Queen! That may change when we get a King instead, though...
Indeed, he should get rid of that 1917 hive. The Lenin bee just had the Queen killed, soon the Stalin bee will take over and conquer neighbouring hives. ;-)
First your not nuts! Look at what you have and are learning! A big kudos to your queen provide! I believe a fresh fram of eggs always helps reset the hive. I think you have a good game plan, run with it. Thanks for sharing. HBM
I think if this little nuc accepts the queen, it should be dubbed the Khaleesi hive. Because she survived.
love the GOT reference
I know next to nothing about bee keeping, but I take my hat off to you for the dedication you are showing your troopers.
Jim, Frederick Dunn in one of his videos stated that a person isn't mature and responsible as a bee keeper until they are able to face the fact that one may have to kill a hive if need be. Spreading these angry bees may become a much bigger problem if they continue their behavior inside your other hives. See if they make a queen, then help them get through the winter. If they don't time to face the fact
When I introduced a new queen to a queenless hive in late june they attacked the cage and acted as if they wanted to kill her. Stinging through the screen. My bee guy said to put in some frames of brood and use the candy slow escape method. That it would be okay. I just knew they would kill her but now this is my strongest hive. Best brood pattern I have ever seen.
Good for you! I just don't want to risk ANOTHER queen death. This hive is very anti-queen it seems.
personally I would not waste any more resources on the box of soon to be dead bees; the beekeeper did you a favour by giving you a queen-you now have a hive again' give her some frames of brood from your strong hives and let her get through winter; she will produce next year; give her the chance you are willing to give the dead hive
you have it backwards the resource hive is your dying hive; take the drawn frames give it to your strong hives in exchange for frames of brood to your new queen
If you want to play with your dead hive; shake off the frames one in front of each of your strong hives until the hive is no longer; that way you gave them a chance and watch what happens and then you have frames to use after freezing your drone brood
I'm starting to come around to this way of thinking. Thanks.
Adding a laying worker to another hive is a serious issue. Accept the loss and shake em out. I know it's hard to do but will save you from polluting another hive.
Good on you for saving the queen with the nuc.
Hey, I understand the gut wrenching feeling of having a laying worker hive. I had one last year about this time that I was unable to save and had to combine it with super strong hive. I tried putting a frame of milk brood in every week for three weeks and then a new queen. The workers stopped laying, but they killed the new queen. This year my bee resources are more abundant, so when I had a laying worker hive this year I was able to save it. But, I don't think I will ever do what I did to save it again. I did some reading and found a method that seemed reasonable. They said it worked well for them about a 90% success rate. So, early one morning I moved the laying worker hive to the spot that my strongest hive was sitting, and put my strongest hive in their spot. The thought is that the foragers from the strong hive would return to the laying worker hive and dispatch any laying workers, and that any returning laying worker foragers would go to the strong hive with the same result. Then after a few days the laying worker hive should accept a new queen. Although this did work the battle that ensued lost about five pounds of bees from both hives. There were so many dead bees out in front of the hives I was worried I had killed off my strongest hive. She was fine and still to this day laying a beautiful pattern, just light on bees for a month or so. After a few days I found and caged a queen from one of my mating boxes. I took her, her two frames of brood, and bees and put her dead center of the bottom brood box. Then, lightly covered every frame in the hive with powdered sugar. After about four days I went back in found that the hive was quite and all seemed right. The bees gentle brushed away, and I pull the wax plug I had in her cage. Then, I set her on top of the frame. She was greeted by the bees in the hive and dropped down on a frame. Why a say I will never try that again is because of the bees lost in the battle. I think it would be better to shake the bees and let them drift into other hives. then after a week or so put the hive back up with a new nuc.
Cheer, I hope it all works out with the hive.
Thanks for sharing. It's great to hear all these methods and tips.
I had a laying worker hive this summer and new brood frame did the trick.
But this is really strange. It sounds unlikely with no eggs, but there might still be a queen. I would shake them all through a box with queen excluder on the bottom to make sure.
I know nothing about how to help your hive so instead of my uneducated opinion i just wanted to say thank you for teaching us with all your successes and failures! I love the honest, open style and i wish your bees and you a wonderful flow! And i'm already starting on the fall and winter well wishes.
Thanks for the support!
I agree with Ariana Clark! Showing us your successes and failures is very helpful. It is nice to see that others have some of the same problems. This was my first year beekeeping and I can say I learned a lot but not that I ended up with a hive. I had a very similar problem except it started with the package that I bought. They killed the first queen inside the cage (it was a slow release). I bought another queen and I think they killed her as well because I saw her after they released her but she never laid. Then a friend donated a frame of queen cups and brood to the hive. He captured 3 of the queens and one was allowed to go free into my hive. We saw her once but again they killed her. So you can see I never got off the ground! it was a bummer. But I think the lesson is, Don't start with just one package. I think I will either get 2 packages or buy a nuc that is really a small established hive. Cost is an issue. If it wasn't I'd get 2 nucs.
This comment is my feeling exactly except you said it better and more concisely than I could have.
I haven't had luck getting laying working hives to be queenright...much like what you're going through. What has worked for me is shaking out the bees about 3 feet in front of the hive and doing a newspaper combine with another colony (with the queenright colony above the newspaper). That minimizes the loss of bees in the laying working hive and bolsters the population of the queenright colony. Of course it's heartbreaking to do the shake-out, but most of the bees will make it back into the hive and ultimately is saves them all from certain doom. It's not a sure thing, but it's worked for me.
I like this guy, he is so sincere no bull, he tells it as it is.
Slightly different scenario, when I have dealt with angry bees, I moved the hive to another side of the apiary, in order to siphon off the foragers and make it easy to find the queen to dispose of her and add a new one. Place a nuc or hive for the returning foragers on the original site and add a frame of brood in all stages ( bias) from calm bees. Some of the foragers now become nurse bees and produce queen cells. You could add a frame of bias to frankenhive and see if they produce queen cells as you will have a number of young bees in there. You are only sacrificing one frame at this stage. If it fails them shake out the bees, if successful you may consider adding a few more frames and cover the hive in you winter poly outfit.
Some great tips. Thank you!
oh one other thing - I agree you definitely stopped the laying worker. but you also said you thought they were wanting to die (the Queenless hive) and if you still get that vibe - listen to it.
Well since you have asked I can now offer my opinion. first off don't release the queen allow the hive to do that remove the cork install fondant and they will get her out. Second I know it is important to check on them but the smoke will cover the scents for a period of time. Now if I had capped brood a few nurse from the queenless I would use that whole frame in the NUC plus one frame of honey/nectar. And let them bee for a week or so. If that doesn't work I would just check once a week for queen cups. Also try using patties to help build up brood before winter. Just my two cents as we all have different ideas.
We had a case of laying worker in a hive. We shook the bees out away from the hive. We then waited a day for the older forage bees to return to the hive. After that we combined that hive with another hive using the newspaper method. That hive once combined exploded with production. So in a way we saved as much of the laying worker hive as we could.
Your tenacity is inspiring! What a saga!
Reading some of the comments, I think I understand this a little bit better. What you have in that hive is a bad queen. It's actually a laying worker, but think of it as a bad queen because the result is effectively the same. What you need to do is pinch the queen, so you can introduce a new queen without the hive killing her. But since it's a worker, possibly several, that you need to get rid of, the only way to do this is to shake the bees out of the hive. The comments indicate the laying workers are likely nurse/house bees that have never been outside the hive and have never orientated, so they'll just stay put until they die while the foragers who do know their surroundings can find their way back. If this is all the case, then this will get the laying workers out of the hive, so their pheromones won't keep messing things up and you can properly introduce a new queen to the hive.
So that's my take on this. Think of it as pinching a queen. You've done that before. It's just a more complicated situation since it's laying workers. So, shake those bees out of the hive a fair distance from the bee yard to clean out those house bees and then we can see about combining with that nuc you put the queen into, putting her under the paper this time.
I would probably also euthanize the house bees if they congregate somewhere so they don't have to suffer while waiting for the inevitable.
You'd said they were working on a queen cup, but I would be done with the wait and see on this hive and would want a more certain solution. It's possible that hive is making a new queen and will be in just under the wire to be ready for winter (might want another resource hive), but chances are, requeening is the best option so that this hive survives.
EDIT: That all said, Balboa II wasn't in her hive until September last year. So, maybe it'll work again, but it could be you were just lucky.
Something that has worked for me is Find a frame of emerging brood with pollen and nectar on it. Make a push in cage that covers one whole side of the frame and put the Queen in there. All of the brood will emerge with her as their queen. She will start laying in all of the open cells and be a laying queen.
With a laying worker situation, try using the plug on cage method. The 5'x5' x 1' cage attaches to one side of frames and goes over a section of open cells, honey. The queen should start laying within the cage. This should overpower the laying workers and also protects the queen from the rest of the workers during the intro process. Problem has been new queen didn't have a chance to get established laying eggs. Love your channel and all the help you are giving with your information!
I, up until yesterday had the same(?!) problem as you. It turned out that I had a "mutant" queen lurking around the hive. She was much smaller and super hard to spot. Before I found her I tried to add 3 queens that all failed. I searched and searched between those tries but to no avail. Then I found her. Put her down and tried adding a fourth queen. Success!
I was later recommended to shake/strain the whole hive through a queen excluder to locate those hard to find queens.
I hope you can save the hive! Best of luck.
Do a *double leveling*. Effectively build up the the new nuc, and disband the laying workers. --- Donate a frame from each of your hives to the baby nuc - that will give it enough to make it through the winter without over burdening all the other hives. *at the same time* - completely disassemble the working layer hive. Disband all the capped brood to all the other hives (that donated to the nuc). Shake out the remaining bees 50 feet away and let them find another hive. Do the shake-out late in the day, so they have to find some other hive to fly into for the night. OR try another paper-combine with a larger/stronger hive. OR make a shaken swarm.
Hmm, well you have a road that's forked in several directions. You can choose any of several paths, it's up to you.
Personally I think it would be a mistake to shake any of the laying worker hive bees into other hives. My gut reaction to that is, "hell no don't do that!" If I ended up shaking them out, I'd do it away from the apiary and let the foragers come back to a new queen right and very strong hive.
Your local beek wasn't wrong, paper combines work better with the queen right portion below. That's because the queen's scent and brood scent travels upwards on the warm, moist updrafts better than they do downward. That wasn't an easy thing to do where your queen right section was in a small nuc. You'd have to move the queen right frames to a ten frame box and then set it up as the bottom brood chamber and then do the paper partition with the laying worker sections above. I think this would work but the queen right hive needed to be much stronger before I'd have felt very good about it. It needs all the number advantage over the laying worker hive. If there's a battle you want the queen right half to win it.
Any further action at this point trying to help the laying worker hive is risking resources from other bees. Your new queen split isn't likely to build up resources quickly enough to help the "laying worker hive" (LWH). Giving the LWH brood will keep them going but is using other resources and may just be prolonging the inevitable. It's arguable that donor brood frames would be much better spent donated to the new queen split to make her colony build up for winter. If the new queen split works, it's a replacement for the LWH and you've really lost nothing to speak of.
On the other hand....you do have a crap load of resources, arguably to spare. If I was determined to "make use of" the LWH here is what I would do:
1. First I'd see if the new queen split takes.
2. If it does, I would take one of the double stacked double nucs (8 frames), transfer them to a ten frame deep with two extra deep frames of capped brood (to make 10 total frames).
3. I'd remove the LWH and replace it with the new ten frame colony. I'd then take the LWH out and shake it out away from the apiary.
4. I'd take the shallow frames from the LWH and give them to the new ten frame hive in a top honey super. When the capped brood you added hatches, you'll have plenty of nurse bees plus you'll get the foragers from the LWH back in a strong queen right colony with strong resources and a (probably) full shallow honey super.
5. The new queen split: I'd use that to replace the transferred double nuc colony in the double nuc resource hive. This is the one now empty from making the new ten frame from the double nuc.
6. I'd give that new queen nuc plenty of capped brood to make them build numbers fast for winter and to take advantage of your fall flow. You can take one capped brood frame from two or three hives if need be.
I feel like this is the logical course of action. It's conservatively safe, practical, gets rid of that damned shallow frame hive (sorry that just bugs me, lol), makes use of the good foragers from the LWH and maintains your hive numbers to what they were when this mess started with the LWH.
I don't really see any drawbacks to that course of action except it's quite a bit of work and is a bit contingent on if the new queen split takes or not. Otherwise you won't have a replacement for the transferred double nuc colony.
I think I need a diagram and a flow chart.
Seriously... all great ideas. My only issue with all that is that everything right now is MEDIUM frames. All my deeps are spoken for and I have no drawn deep frames to spare. I have 20 mediums to play with. My nuc split is 5 fully drawn medium frames. 10 of the best ones are in the 10 frame medium LWH. I have 5 more pulled frames that I was hoping would go in the top of the nuc if that queen starts laying and expands. My resource hives are all graduated to full boxes so there's nothing of use there. (The remaining boxes are all deeps.) So I'm dealing with a 5 frame medium nuc that could expand to a 10 frame (stacked) medium nuc. And the the 10-wide medium LWH.
My mind right now is leaning toward putting energy and resources into the nuc split and get it built up as much as possible. Use whatever I can salvage from the LWH and treat it like a resource hive for the nuc. I need a queenright colony within about 2 weeks, then spend September nursing it to be ready for freezing nights of October.
You are fine on time - our seasons have been consistently late the last few years - feed them - subst. pollen if needed. You will have the perfect overwintering NUC or a solid resource hive to pull from - - w/drawn comb u are set. nectar/honey better yet - she can lay 2k a day.. (almost a poem) Let ur mated queen do her job uninterrupted - score!
Ah, I lost track of what you had in mediums and what you had in deeps. I incorrectly called mediums "shallows" earlier out of a bad habit. Mediums to me are shallows but there are actually 4" shallows for comb honey etc...(for anyone that caught my flub...sorry, lol).
So as I understand it you currently have thirty total drawn medium frames? I'd strongly suggest working out of the medium hive/nuc issue rather than getting into it even deeper all the time with that medium nuc. It sucks having an oddball, unconventional hive like the mediums, like one out of the entire apiary. It's always a pain to swap equipment and use your resources efficiently that way. My advice would be to keep the mediums strictly as honey super equipment. It's okay in a pinch to use medium equipment for a swarm capture and then change it out ASAP but take it from someone that started out with mixed and matched hand me down stuff...it's worth the extra effort to work out of an oddball hive configuration and especially so to utilize the resource hives effectively. Plus I always had issues with all medium hives...I don't know why. You already have had issues with this one, they're just wonky. Too much traveling for the queen to cover the extra frames was always my theory.
You still don't have any problem, all you need is some new deep frames with foundation and some new deep equipment (Unless you just don't have or don't want to have a budget for more new deep frame hive components). You can do this with either 10 frame equipment or to save resources and work you can certainly substitute four or five frame deep nucs and medium nuc supers and make it work the same way.
All you have to do is, using a quiet box, go around and pull what deeps you need (may as well pull mostly brood frames to build the new colony faster), one or two at a time and replace them with new frames with foundation from your hives. Drop the newbs in the middle of the brood clusters and they'll draw them out in short order. Always place new foundation next to drawn combs.
Use the resourced deep frames for a new deep frame split and add your new queen and her colony (she still is caged after all so now is the time to get out of the medium brood colony business!), use your mediums in medium supers on top. You'll have two medium 10 frame supers with 20 frames and five frames left over from the nuc...add the other five mediums to those for a third medium super, any brood frames (if there are still any remaining now), put those together in a super with a queen excluder and add them to your deep frame colonies. When that brood hatches, the queen is excluded to the bottom brood ten frame box and they should backfill the old brood comb with honey lickity split.
I can see where a flow chart would simplify things, lol.
Agreed, and going into a flow as well. Besides if he makes a new deep split with resourced brood for the new queen colony...that thing will not only establish but will freaking explode in two weeks.
I really appreciate your time and efforts taken to produce this video series. I have to hand it to you for your tenacity and courage. I wish you the very best in your next chapter. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all will go well with your queen acceptance this time. Can't wait to find out.
Incidentally I just found out a few days ago that I have a drone laying situation. I've ordered a queen from CA and she will be arriving this Thursday. At least I know what the welcoming or hostile behaviors look like. Hopefully I will have some good news in queen acceptance as well as solving the drone laying problem. Thanks for sharing this very timely episodes! I learned heaps!
Since you really aren't in it for the honey right now, I say keep on experimenting. Maybe they do just want to make their own queen. I would really like to see how this works out. Even if you lose the hive in the end, we all learn something interesting or useful from it. Good luck! Eagerly awaiting the next installment of Game of Combs!
Read up on combining with a strong hive. One thing that can be done is switching its spot mid day with a hive that has a queen. The returning field bees will kill the offending bees as they will see the problem upon returning. There are different methods like that. Combine newspaper method with a powerful hive and then re split after they fill it with eggs. It's not easy though. Doesn't always work. Sorry to hear.
Has there ever been a more dramatic trilogy?
I think "Game of Combs" and "Days of Our Hives" have been the best comments I've heard in the last few days.
Judging by the amount of Queen rejections going on, Game of Combs is pretty spot-on!
I’m awaiting episode 4 “Same bee time, Same bee channel”
Dynastie or Dallas hihilolol
Don't have any suggestions for you, but I have enjoyed seeing how you have tried to save the hive. I feel like I've had some of those same type struggles with my hives. Keep up the good work!
Let that hive go. Survival of the fittest.
The beekeeper that gave you the queen bee suggested you the right thing. You see, the air flow goes from bottom to top, so the pheromones in essence will go the same way.
As of laying workers situation, from my experience, especially if the hive was without proper queen for a long time, it is best to combine that hive with a strong hive. Bees from strong hive will eliminate laying workers and you will have a very strong hive ready for the coming winter and next year.
Don't forget to feed your bees with sugar syrup when adding a new queen. It will help a lot by making bees happy and willing to accept the new queen. Also, if possible, avoid smoking them too much.
Thanks!
Watching this for a second time and after some time to think, if nothing works, do shake the hive and remove the box so that the bees split between other hives. Winter is aproaching and a little boost is welcome.
The new nuc could be another experiment, wintering single nuc, but feed them to stimulate.
Aren't you worried about winter? Seems like you did a lot of splitting and now you are investing a lot of resources (brood) into this hive. I think you got a lot of really good splits going and I would focus on preping them for winter. I think you are doing the right thing, just leave them alone and hope they make a queen, but I wouldn't waste a frame of brood from this new Nuc on them though, I would try and build up this nuc and give it the best chance of surviving.
You make a good point. One more medium frame of eggs would be the hail mary attempt. After that, they're on their own.
Vino Farm a medium frame is not to mich to risk. It will certainly make for good TH-cam videos! Best of luck to you, love the channel, Im addicted!
Thanks for sharing your experience !
I would wait 2 weeks, then check the the nuclei for good start.
Then, I would remove the 'non queen hive' (check first if they make a queen, but I doublt they will now...) ; plave the nuclei in a hive at the removed 'no queeen hive' location and then go at least 100 feet with the'no queen hive' and remove all bees from frames.(protect your self).
You will see that most of them will fly back the the basic location and gather with the new colony.
I did it a few time, and this was the only way out.
I hope you can get through, but sometime...'c'est la vie'.
Frankenhive seems like a bunch of crazy fuzz butts but it's awesome that you're doing everything you can to save them. I'm bummed that they didn't like your new queen though. I say wait and see if they make they're own queen, who knows maybe they're just really picky about they're queens.
Keep adding a frame of open brood about every week. This will suppress the laying workers. The longer the hive is in a laying worker state the more difficult it is to bring back. At some point, it doesn't make sense to take resources from your other hives. At that point, the only choice you have is to shake out the hive use the resources for the other strong hives and move on. Good luck!
I think you are right about your best decision being to shake those bees into other hives with strong queens. You could always do a hail Mary with the newly condensed "laying worker hive" and drop some egg frames in there. Maybe now that they are all densely packed the sent of the worker wont move through the hive easy?
I'm running against the clock now. I'd be up for more attempts if it were July.
As I watched this, you have now a replacement hive going with the new Queen! So you using the other queenless hive as a learning experience is doing you more good than just shaking it and hoping for the best! I am not a bee keeper and never have had bees but some how I was drawn in to this little life drama. And can see the education your getting. I am also learning as you go! Thank you.
Thanks. This is ALL learning. Especially these amazing comments. I have great commenters!
after your last-ditch attempt with a frame of eggs from the new nuc, if they dont make a queen, let the hive die. it probably has issues....
you have been quite diligent and thak you for sharing, we are learmning through you. keep up the good videos. thanks
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Remove the hive from the current location and shake the bees out (away from the apiary but doesn't have to be too far). The foragers will return and then circle out until they find an existing hive to join. The other hives will be boosted and no real harm done. You also resolve the medium frame issue you have by cycling out those brood frames. Can use them in honey supers or flick them. Treat the new queen as a replacement.
I don't think it is nutty to try different things, that is how all beekeepers learn the best lessons. The 1 thing I would have done is to add a frame of capped brood that is ready to hatch out into the nuc so your new queen has some new loyal followers. Keep up the experimenting.
I have never had any luck with laying workers, I wish I had some background here.. but I'm grateful for this insight into how hard this can be. Keep up the awesome videos!
Thanks!
I'm in the Caribbean so I don't have to worry about cold, just moments of no flow, so I just feed.
What I would have done, was use that qween in a push in cage for the balboa hive, build a.cage about half the size of a frame and get her working in that bottom brood box.
That qween less hive , remove it to the field and shake every one from it. Let them become refugees and seek residence from a nearby hive, reuse those frames in one of your younger hives.
From the looks of things, that nuc you got a the start of the season, is the master of that yard, I'd be making plans to draft qweens off her next year and replace all slow goers.
I hope the next video is at least 30 mins long showing the progress of all the hives, a tearing down even a cup and to the extreme, giving space and locking those qweens inside with an excluder. Can't afford another swarming at this time of the year.
No harm in trying mate, if nothing happens with queen cell, add the shallow brood above one of the strongest colonies as a super and use the newspaper combination method. You only be strengthening that colony that way.
You can try to split the troublesome hive into two boxes. Since you mentioned that the bottom half was the troublesome one, maybe isolate the other half with a queen and grow them from there , leaving the troublesome one for your experiments? That way you lose just half instead of the whole hive
I wonder if a snelgrove board could have helped you combine the hives. I know it is for making splits, but it would be interesting experiment to see if the process could be reversed. At any rate this whole saga has kept me on the edge of my seat. I just hope in the end you end up with a positive outcome.
From the looks of it, it may be a NUC becoming its own hive and the queenless hive making their own queen.
We're up against the clock now, so I don't know if I have the luxury of watching that queenless hive make it's own queen. Winter is coming.
Interesting as always! Great filming technique and narration. This takes my mind off the terrible air quality from this miserably dry, hotter than normal summer.
If there is no queen in the laying worker hive they will eventually accept a new queen it just takes time. They get confused and defend when they should accept. I had a queen in a cage for a week before the hive accepted her. They were on her trying to kill her for several days, I had to keep putting marshmallows in the hole to keep them from getting through the candy and killing her. They finally came around and are thriving with that queen now. It seems that the best way to improve quick acceptance is leave the hive queenless for a few days before introducing a new queen.
I have been watching your bee series for a while now and I just want to say that you are doing an awesome job! I like the fact that you never give up on your bees. Also the fact that you not only care about your bees but you also are willing to listen to your subscribers. Just keep up the great work! Thank you for sharing your experience with all of us!
Use a push in cage. Cut an 8 inch square out of #8 hardware cloth. Fold each side down 1 inch from the sides so you have a 6*6 cage. Take a frame of emerging brood and shake all the bees off. Only put the queen under the cage. Position the cage over emerging brood and honey and wait 4 days. When you you check there should be young bees that have emerged and hopefully the queen is laying in the empty cells. Now she's a laying queen and a hopelessly queenless hive should accept her. I've used this method with success. Search for Michael Palmer and push in cage. That's where I got the idea from. It works.
My idea would be. Take 3 frames (1 honey, brood, and pollen) place in a Nuc box and let them build queen cells. Wait 10 to 11 day and then place those frames into that hive and let the queen emerge. And as time passes add a frame of open brood to every 2 weeks till the queen starts laying. Its late in the year but they can make it through still.
Good idea, but we don't have the time. Making a queen now is going to be too late. We're 6 weeks away from needing to start winterizing.
In the next episode of "Game of combs" ... Khaleesi survives the attack of the laying workers of the east and in the last episode we hope she will survive
the winter.
Since it's so late in the season, I would cut your loses and just leave the hive along. If they grow a queen then great, but I wouldn't dedicate any more resources to them. Sorry it didn't work out, but you sure have grown your bee yard to quite the impressive side. Keep posting videos, they're fun to watch.
I love that I can watch everything that happened to the hive in the last month in three videos that are uploaded on consecutive days.
I wish I had the time to post more. Thanks.
Shake off the laying worker bees in front of strong hives.
Remove the original hive box.
Place frames from laying worker hive into your queenright hives.
There will bee many bees which return to the original location, but, at some point, you have to call it quits.
After all is said and done, look back and see how many resources/bees/money/time was wasted.
Even if they make a queen, you won't have new bees for almost 2 months, and that's just the 1st batch. As they will have so few bees to keep new brood warm, they will make fewer bees than a strong hive. They will have a tiny patch of capped brood, and will flounder unless you dump more capped brood/resources from your good hives.
Good points. Thanks!
I'm no expert when it comes to laying workers, but I think, at this point, you just have to let them go and see what happens. You have tried everything you can to give them a way out and now you just have to see if they want to survive. I was just commenting to my beekeeping student that a lot of beekeeping is experimentation and I think this is a great example of that concept. Best of luck!
True that Brandon! That is also why if you ask 10 beekeepers a question you'll get 15 different answers!
Brandon's Bees laying workers is a hive on a suicide run. They are fully expecting to die. They lay drone brood with the intent of nursing the drones and dying with the hive after the drones are released. The issue is that the last of the worker brood had already emerged by the time they overthrew the mutant queen. They had no nurse bees to finish off and cap the drone brood.
In nearly all cases of workers laying it is because the hive was traumatized by something and they are closing up shop. If you leave them that way they will make a bunch of drones and die or abandon the hive.
Vino did a good job here. I think he'll have good results.
And the key was to have that laying workers get suppressed by the nuc...which seemed to work.
Thanks, Brandon!
I think combining with a week hive would make the most since. It's getting close to the end of bee season. Might as well give a week hive have more resources. Those bees in that hive won't make it threw the winter. May as well get something out of them.
he said "with this queen I bee Fred" sounds romantic but alas love was not meant to happen. Hope it works out long term in the new box. If he is into your methods you should do a tour video of his setup.
I've corrected this many times over the years by giving them a frame of brood & a queen cell. 90 - 95% success. Queen cell!!!!
Man, I was hoping this would have a happy ending. This is my first year with bees, I have two hives. One is thriving, the other is queenless. The store I purchased my bees from gave me a new queen yesterday. I put her in the hive in a cage and they didn't seem aggressive and my hand was covered in bees after I put her in. I checked back today and there didn't seem to be aggressive behavior. I'm hopeful that she'll take, but I just don't have the resources to donate brood right now. I'm thinking my best bet is to purchase a nuc for a third hive.
Jim, you have now earned your "Order of the Turkey Feather" award!
Suggestions:
1) RELAX & SLOW DOWN! Allow the bees to BE BEES - they have their own schedule. The fondant of cages was meant to take a few days before direct contact - it allows for her pheromones to permeate the hive and their endorphins to adjust to Queen-right levels.
2) When you shake bees - don't do so as if mixing a martini! Give the frame as few shakes as possible - do a man shake! Build yourself a funnel out of cardboard, thin plywood, or what you have available - it's light years faster, more efficient, and less damaging for the bees.
3) The turkey feather mentioned earlier really IS the ideal tool for use directly on the bees. That scraper injures the bees and was never meant to directly contact their tiny legs. Once you switch to a feather - you'll be amazed at how efficient it is at everything from cleaning off the bees when moving frames to scooping up a ball of bees returning with the freshly mated queen(s) on mating flights. No clue WHY, but they don't seem to be bothered by a feather - OR ....they LIKE the smell of turkey - and who doesn't!!! LOL GL
1. I just had the cage in there with the fondant covered up. They didn't even get to the fondant stage of the release. They were clenched on the screen biting like mad. This was like a test, pre-release and they failed the test.
2. I'll work on my shake. I've tried the single hard shake, but it seems like more bees have a hard landing. I've watched other pros and found the quick vibrating up and down jiggle is most efficient and gentlest.
3. I'll look for a feather. I went with the hive tool because they were seriously clenched. Like velcro. Couldn't get them off.
We're ALL cheering you on, so don't think I'm being negative. Just hoping for your success (and me to be right about you hitting 12) this year! LOL *got a side bet going*
2a Remember the 24 bottle beer cases? Using that same interlocking easy carry and store design is how I made my funnel to use when shaking several frames. It's efficient and the speed doesn't allow many to "flow" over the edges and create "angry" responses.
As my primary hives are in North Dakota, I'll save you a couple queens next year to try out - they do great in severe winters and lay early in the spring. I've had Q's killed, but never refused to the level you've shown. Are you sure those now queen~less bees aren't Antifa in heritage? LOL.. You're doing terrific Jim, 2 more years of mind-boggling O.J.T. and you'll make a great keeper. Turkey season here is approaching - I'll ship you a new "wand" to try out.
Keep those mites on the run, and you'll Rock this winter.
Start watching for sugar at good prices. Dry granulated sugar sucks up moisture all winter, and still provides energy! GL
I love your videos! Thank you for sharing! I love that your experimenting on saving the laying worker hive and not just giving up.
i am far from being an expert, but i had this problem before and what has been suggested to me is to take the hive about 300 ft away from it's position, then shake off all the bees on the ground, then reposition the hive in the original spot... the idea is that the laying workers won't be able to fly back to the hive since they never left that and they are too heavy to fly since their abdomen should be full of eggs... then re queen and they should accept the queen now since there wont be any laying workers anymore.
wow... how much capped brood was in the new package!! wow
That whole box was capped like that. They are getting ready for winter. Amazing.
I was thinking the same... Going to be in eastern MA in a couple weeks may need to contact your queen guy!
Oh a suggestion. Franken hive may need feeding. With all this insane drama of the mutant queen, her regicide, the laying workers trying to make their queen cups, the new queen, the new influx of bees, her regicide...and the latest attempt to kill this latest queen...
That is a lot of stress on those bees. I'd probably feed them just so they can relax a little.
Great mini series. Would love to follow the resource hives this fall if you don't use/need them. I have two resource hive this year and I don't know what to do with them for the winter. I don't want them to just die.
They're made for overwintering. That's the point of them. The bees cluster inside near the center wall to keep everyone warm.
IDK what you should do, but I just wanted to say this is my favorite bee keeping channel hands down. Thanks for the continuously great content!
titus142 You’re welcome. Thanks for watching. Tell your friends!
Atlanta, Georgia-I had the same laying worker scenario a month ago in a double deep eight frame hive with one super. After reading lots on the internet I opted to just dump out the bees and cut my loses...another learning oportunity. So, walked out about twenty paces and reluctantly dumped out the entire hive at the edge of the apiary.
I went back the next day to check the other six colonies. The dumped out hive just overwhelmed the neighboring six colonies creating overcrowding. There was some fighting too but mostly they moved into where ever they could get in. I rounded up all my spare boxes and topped each hive to make more room. That worked out okay except for the hive with a recently installed purchased queen. She was gone!
So, if faced with that situation again I would perhaps dump them out a couple frames at a time over a few days. That would allow them to equalize gradually and be less stressful on the remaining colonies.
Whoa. Do you think some of your laying workers went in and killed her?
My initial thought was she left, but after watching how your bees reacted in the various trials I'm thinking she was indeed killed. She was only in the hive one day prior to dumping out the laying worker hive.
Most hobbiest will want to save a hive. A bit of a risk but we have had this work before. Place a frame of bees with foragers from a strong hive into ‘frankenhive’. This will invite a robbing situation. They will kill the laying worker. Close up ‘frankenhive’ and move her to another location if you can....2 miles away. Let them settle for a day and attempt a queen introduction. Should be good. Otherwise just distribute the frames of bees etc from ‘frankenhive’ to your strongest hives. If there is a laying worker, she won’t stand a chance if placed in a strong hive...good luck
Thanks for the ideas.
I have no idea but I wish you all the luck. I look forward to see what happens.
Bravo - except I would have put the entire frame of nurse bees and brood frames & new Queen in the NUC... Let them build the NUC up then combine the NUC with "hive with issues". The numbers of bees then in the NUC would be the dominating force when combined.. Solved.. NUC bee's ALWAYS on bottom - the scent drifts up with current they create when fanning.. You are awesome... High Fives..
That new Queen needs to be in the SEALED queen cage for 5-6 days (before release)
Bees: " oh look guys he's opening the box. Oh gee what hive will it be this week."
With a walkaway split you need to be walk away from a failure. When you made up the baby nuc with the 5 frame medium box you made of a viable split, but you combined it with a non'-viable colony. As hard as it is you need to take the failures earlier and not later.
From what I've seen of other beekeepers is when they start a new nuc/hive they will give the bees some time to settle and realize they are queenless before introducing a new queen. Worth looking into the details at least
You are a persistent one!!! (and I admire that). I've been watching you since day 1 and have learned A LOT! So thank you very much for the videos! I'm interested in beekeeping, but where I'm from (Alexandroupolis, Greece), I suppose it will be a lot easier... I am a physics teacher, so, you got me thinking about the pheromone of the queen, when you put the small hive on top: why would the pheromone go down the hive and not up? I would suppose that its natural direction would be to go up, so, I suppose that's why the guy that gave you the last queen, told you to put the queen on the bottom and the problematic hive on top... But that's just what I would assume, with no prior knowledge about beekeeping.
The bees fan their wings inside the hive to circulate the air, when I was using solid floors the air would enter one side of the entrance, circulate inside and leave on the other side of the entrance.
Also keep in mind that the queen pheromone is spread by contact as well. The bees run all over the frames and spread it in all corners of the hive.
Putting the Queenright box on the bottom forces the bees entering and leaving the hive to pass through the Queen pheromones because they have to go through the Queen's brood box to get resources.
Silver realm : Aren't you also supposed to turn the bottom queen right in the opposite direction so each entrance is face opposite??
I know this is late, but one last idea - and anyone who is a beekeeper should please speak up if this is a stupid idea. If you put the new queen into one of your existing nucs (so that you can have her in a deep hive body) could you put that one colony in your hoop house for the winter? just this one winter?
I would use the Nuc and if they accept the queen, I would slowly add shakes from the queen less hive over the coming few weeks such that they integrate to the queen not the other way around.
Fit from Fat oh that's a good idea!
I was thinking something similar yesterday and if they didn't make a queen cup I was saying just shake them all into the stronger hives and let the hives sort it out.
I would NOT shake any of the bees from the laying worker colony into another hive. NOT
Fit from Fat has a point integrate the hive the other way around. Bring old Balboa hive and resources accross to the new nuc box instead of the other way around d
Brent is feeling what I'm feeling... Those bees in that Balboa hive are extremely aggressive. I would not want to add them to anything. If they can't or won't make themselves a queen, they are doomed. I feel they will kill any queen not of their making.
Amazing Amazing thing you did to make a new nuc for the new queen. let that hive make a new queen for themselves if they want. no point of fighting with nature here and exhaust yourself. Like i said on earlier video, maybe that environment of this hive is not favorable. anyway looking forward for future results. what's update about other hives and nucs? Goodluck!!
I notice all your hives are 8 frame deeps and this is the only 10 frame shallow hive you own. Since there is no brood and low population in this hive this is the perfect time to combine or switch this hive into a deep for future convenience sakes.
I don't know yearly timelines, but I'd be ready to cut losses and leave them queenless. They could be the Shaker bee, and their hive could be Canterbury Village, lol.
Let me start by saying that I have minimal experience, so I would listen more closely to people that you know have successful apiaries, BUT....
It seems to me that you have done all you can do, and more! At this point, I would treat the 'queenless-laying-worker-anomaly' hive with a let-nature-take-it's-course attitude. They may generate a queen, they may not. Worst case, you lose what was an experiment to begin with, and you still have a number of successful splits for your efforts. Meanwhile, the newly created 'resource' hive (with the brand new queen) may very well thrive, to compensate! As you mentioned, there's still time to solidify a hive before the onset of Winter. Either way, although I'm sure it was a frustrating time for you, you've made huge strides this Summer in expanding your apiary! Congrats, and well done, Jim!! :-)
Mate, you've had so many comments on here suggesting that you shake the bees out and then introduce a new queen. Then you said "you dont know if that would work", well heaps of people are trying to say that they've tried it and it has worked. I too have used the shake it out method before and it worked fine. My laying worker problem was solved in less than two weeks, rather than over a month.
I'd say more than 80% of the people commenting are just repeating what someone told them to do and have not actually tried it. It's one of those classic beekeeper tropes... Like "Cold doesn't kill bees" and many other old timey lines.
Of course shaking your bees out into a field and starting over will solve the problem... it will also kill a bunch of bees. I had nothing to lose and tried to experiment with an alternate solution. I lost two queens, but the hive wound up making their own queen and they are still doing fine 6 months later in the middle of winter. And I learned how to solve this in the future... without shaking bees out into a field.
I love that you have tried to save the hive I had a similar situation with one of my hive and I was never able to re queen them I even got a free queen from my supplier the similarities are uncanny....I truly wonder what exactly makes them do this...is it because its late in the year? Or in a derth? I'd love to know why this happens
I had a laying worker this past spring. I just put a new queen in and have been fine since.
Jim, Not to sound repetitive but, PUSH IN CAGE. Take a frame of capped worker brood that is ready to emerge and place the new queen and the cage on that frame and introduce it into the middle of the defunked hive. The newly hatched brood will accept her on the spot and protect her make sure that you use a frame with plastic foundation, and make the cage deep enough to keep out burrowing bees that try to get under it. After a week or two when that have all calmed down remove the cage and all will be good. you can tell when they accept her because they wont be trying to get through the cage at her. Life will be grand again. Make the cage out of #8 wire cloth, about 4x6 to 5x7, try to trap honey, pollen, and emerging brood under it. It should only take about 15 minutes to make the cage. Then find a good frame from anywhere. It works, I've done it many times. As violent as they are they will need the better part of two weeks to accept her. It's still less time than making their own and attempting a matting flight. Best of luck!!!
Sounds like you are doing everything right . It's all about the bees keep up the good work.
Couple of opinions:
1. Don't wait on the new nuc to take eggs from. Take a frame or two of eggs again from your other hives and add it to the queen less hive. If they are being jerks about queens let them try again to make their own queen. Feed the new nuc heavily to get it ready for winter. If the queen less hive requeens itself and is lagging before winter, take brood from several other hives giving it a shot in the arm. (This is one of the great benefits of having many colonies)
2. It the queen less hive fails to make their own queen combine them with another hive. You have another new nuc so you are not out a hive. Again feed the new nuc for winter.
I really applaud your for learning, researching and thinking outside of the normal beekeeping box to save the hive. It's great to see you growing in experience and I foresee your apiary busting at the seams next year.
Thanks for the ideas!
Been a viewer for 3 seasons now. A Beekeeper for two.
It’s been amazing that the things you’ve dealt with are very similar to my experiences.
I’ve found, Always do what you feel is best for your bees. Trust your gut.
Foremost, No one ever wants to lose any bees or colonies.
Sadly the failing hive, not wanting a queen, will most likely die. They’ve been with out a Queen for so long.
The remaining Summer bees are nearing there end life, and with out new bee numbers,
I would not give them any more of the other colonies resources.
Your New queen in the NUC, her first brood won’t hit until mid Sept. hopefully she will be Balboa 2 and they will grow quickly.
Though, you may try combining them back into the failed hive with the remaining bees.
Keep a close eye on the nectar and pollen stores for them in late Sept early Oct
Winter is coming soon in your area.
As you know, Most of what they are bringing in now, is winter storage and food for consumption.
Colony Health and bee numbers are key going into late fall/winter. Keep em strong!
Thank you for helping to educate so many.
Thanks, Duane. All excellent points.
Excuse me. Plug on cage is 5" x 5" x 1" made of galvanized mesh wire. You can easily view the queen and the colony's behaviors. It's worth a shot and it just may work in this situation.
OK, I've been thinking about it, and I have a theory. The laying worker hive, despite no longer having any workers that are laying, has workers that have developed ovaries & other reproductive organs, and are producing a sufficient amount of queen pheromones (despite not being bona fide queens) to fool the hive into thinking they're a queenright hive. Thus, they kill all introduced queens.
I don't know if this is a good approach, but my suggestion is this:
Make yourself a queen introduction cage. A big one, ideally one that covers an entire frame. Use #8 hardware cloth, which excludes all bees: Queens, drones, workers, all of 'em. Push the cage onto a frame of *totally drawn* (not foundation!) broodcomb. It needs *some amount* of honey on it and covered by the cage as well. That shouldn't be too hard; Most broodcomb has honey in the corners. If you absolutely can't find that then take a handful of fondant and mash it (gently) into the comb. They'll need something to eat.
Take the queen, along with 8-10 attendants out of the resource hive. Put the queen and all her attendants inside the cash, push the cage into the comb, and then introduce this mega-frame into the hive. It'll probably take up the space of two frames, but be sure to leave bee space between the surface of the cage and the next frame over.
Then just leave her in there. The bees may go apeshit trying to kill her, but they will be excluded by the #8 hardware cloth. She'll continue to lay on that one empty frame. Hopefully the QMP she's producing will revert the laying workers, and the brood recognition pheromone from her eggs will eventually convince the hive she belongs.
You can OPTIONALLY shake out the hive right before introduction. That'll disorient the bees and confuse their signals. Might be worth it; Up to you. If you don't take the hive away I'm pretty sure almost all of them will return to the hive. You can ALSO OPTIONALLY remove any broodcomb with eggs laid by the workers. Chances are the brood recognition pheromone from those brood are what's causing the colony to attack the queen in the first place.
A few possibly helpful links.
How to make a push-in cage:
www.michiganbees.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Queen-Introduction-Cage_20120715.pdf
Mike Palmer introducing queens via a push-in cage:
th-cam.com/video/OakM0HN0vJI/w-d-xo.html
Mike Palmer removing a queen from a push-in cage:
th-cam.com/video/zvtuR_8sgvI/w-d-xo.html
What is brood recognition pheromone?
primebees.com/2017/09/18/brood-recognition-pheromone/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honey_bee_pheromones#Brood_recognition_pheromone
I'm only making a suggestion at all right now because you've directly solicited it. Clearly I don't know exactly what's going on here. Good luck!
Question: would 8-10 attendants be enough to care for the brood the queen lays inside the full-frame cage? Would it be helpful for the cage frame to have some emerging brood in there, and/or maybe add inside the cage some nurse bees from another hive (sans the LW pheromones) to help out with the new babies once the eggs begin to hatch into larvae? Or would the bees outside the cage be able to reach the larvae to feed them (provided they're so inclined)? I guess it would depend on how long the cage remains on?
I would think 8-10 nurse bees would be sufficient, given that 4-5 is enough for a quarter-sized cage, which is what most push-in cages end up covering. Frankly I think 4-5 is enough to keep the queen fed & healthy indefinitely, which is why that's the number of attendants included a queen cage typically. But I pulled 8-10 out of thin air as a hedge, in case 4-5 isn't quite enough and she'll be alone with them for a bit longer than normal. Besides, with #8 hardware cloth, the question's moot: If the colony accepts the queen they'll likely feed her through the cage anyway. If not, well, being fed will be the least of her problems.
As for emerging brood, emerging brood would be great: They don't know what kind of queen they're supposed to have so they're likely to accept the queen. However there's not any of that in the colony right now. And I'm not sure if adding another frame of foreign brood, after doing so twice already, is really likely to help matters. Maybe it would. Maybe it just exacerbates the situation by dropping another type of brood recognition pheromone into a hive already pretty confused as it is.
I don't really think there are good answers right now. Merely varying degrees of bad, but a push-in cage seems to me (FWIW) to be the least bad.
I love the ideas and the background and the effort you put into my dilemma. My main problem now is time. I need a queenright colony before September. Whether it's the medium box or the nuc... I need a laying queen to start serious buildup for the whole month of September. I like your ideas. I just don't know if I want to experiment too much further RIGHT NOW. I wish I had more free time!
Well the nuc is your safest bet in that case. Do you have at this point any other nucs or have they all graduated to full-sized hives? The advantage of a nuc when overwintering is being able to put two of them side-by-side to reduce energy expenditure during the winter. The only reason a colony expends any energy in winter is vibration, to warm the cluster. Minimizing that is beneficial to the colony because it extends the bees' lifespans, and reduces the need for a cleansing flight.
With two side-by-side nucs, each cluster moves to the inner side of the box and benefits from the others' warmth as well. Alternatively just put the nuc up against a full-sized colony. Ought to be fine, I'd guess.
Shake em out and move on. That hive is hopeless, and it is going to end up taking even more resources (time / hive material) from the remainder of your apiary. I would think it more cruel to continue to offer another sacrificial queen to this doomed hive.
Okay... So, i'm no Beenius (Bee genius) but I think you should just let them lie for a bit, give 'em enough time to make a queen.
Failing that, over time shake some frames of the bees into the new queens nuc, have her accept them, not the other way around.