Took a peek into the Blue Nuc:
This is a frame of brood I brought over from another hive:
Still no sign of a laying queen.
White Nuc
I went into the White Nuc looking for the queen. Opening it up, didn't see too many bees on the top frames:
Then I found this! See if you can see what is wrong with this next picture:
Did you see it? If not, maybe this will help:
What you see here is evidence of something beekeepers don't want to see - a laying worker! What is happened is that the hive didn't have a queen. Sometimes one of the works spontaneously starts to produce eggs, and starts laying. But since the worker's abdomen is shorter than a queen bees, she can't place the egg in the center of the cell. Plus, she usually lays more than one egg in a cell (something a queen bee would never do). Add to the problem, these eggs are not fertilized, so they will develop only into drone brood.
This hive is doomed.
There are various things you can do to try to salvage a laying worker hive. Michael Bush has some good information on laying workers.
Since I don't have much invested in this hive, I am inclined to do nothing and just salvage the comb. It's a shame, but that's life.
Grey Nuc
The Grey Nuc is doing well - laying eggs, making' babies!
Green Hive
Last time I added a honey super, and was pleased to see they are starting to fill it:
I believe of all my hives, this one might give me some honey!
I developed a laying worker in one of my hives toward the end of last summer. I just let her die out last fall and split my other hive this spring. Since I had an empty hive already full of comb it made the split very easy and both hives are taking off pretty well this year. Good luck to you!
ReplyDeleteYea, that's what I'm thinking as well...
ReplyDelete