Laying worker bee
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A laying worker bee is a worker bee that lays unfertilized eggs usually in the absence of a queen bee. Only drones develop from the eggs of laying worker bees (with some exceptions, see thelytoky). A beehive cannot survive with only a laying worker bee.
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[edit] Development of a laying worker bee
Laying workers develop in the absence of a proper queen, whose pheromones prevent the developing of the workers' ovaries. The pheromones that prevent development of laying workers are brood recognition pheremones. In some cases, a failing queen is not superseded, and a laying worker can develop in the presence of a true queen. The process of developing a laying worker usually takes weeks after the loss of the original queen.
[edit] Methods for Identifying a laying worker bee
All methods of identifying a laying worker bee involve inspection, in which the beekeeper examines the brood pattern and type to identify if a healthy queen is present, or a potential laying worker. The beekeeper looks for a number of symptoms, including:
- Brood Pattern:Laying workers lay eggs that lack the queen's egg recognition pheromone, meaning that other workers may remove the eggs. This results in a spotty brood pattern, in which empty cells are scattered heavily through capped brood.
- Number of Eggs per Cell: The beekeeper looks at the honeycomb cells to see how many eggs are laid in each one. Queen bees will usually lay only a single egg to a cell, but laying workers will lay multiple eggs per cell. Multiple eggs per cell are not an absolute sign of a laying worker because when a newly mated queen begins laying, she may lay more than one egg per cell.
- Egg Position:Egg position in the cell is a good indicator of a laying worker. A Queen bee's abdomen is noticeably longer than a worker, allowing a queen to lay an egg at the bottom of the cell. A Queen bee will usually lay an egg centered in the cell. Workers cannot reach the bottom of normal depth cells, and will lay eggs on the sides of the cell or off center.
- Drone Brood in Worker Cells: Another good indicator is drone brood in worker sized cells. Drones are raised in larger cells than workers. Drone cells are recognizeable by their larger size, and when capped Drone cells are capped with blunt pointed cappings. Drones in worker cells are a sure sign of a failing queen or laying worker.
[edit] Removing a laying worker bee
Removing a laying worker is difficult for a number of reasons. Laying workers may not appear different from other workers. Also, in hives where a laying worker develops, multiple workers will lay, meaning that killing a worker spotted laying will not resolve the problem. Introducing a new queen bee to a hive with a laying worker is difficult, as the colony considers itself queenright, and will not accept the new queen. Beekeepers have developed a number of methods for requeening laying worker hives, including:
- Add open brood: It is the lack of pheromones from open brood that causes the problem, so you can just add a frame of open brood every week until they start queen cells. Usually after two or three weeks they will raise a queen. At this point you can introduce a queen or let them finish raising their own.
- Shake outs: In a shake out, the bees are carried several hundred yards from their hive, and then shaken from the frames. Shaking the bees off too close to their original hive location risks them finding their way home by smell. The non-laying older bees, field bees, return to the old hive location, which may already have a queen in a queen cage waiting. The laying workers, younger nurse bees who have never left the hive, have never oriented to the hive so don't know their way back and will stay clustered and lost where brushed from their frames till they die.
- Requeen via Push in Cage: A push in cage is a plastic cage that can be pushed into the wax comb. It prevents bees outside the cage from reaching the queen. The new queen can lay in the enclosed cells, which usually include emerging brood. The bees that emerge in the push in cage will accept the queen and care for her. When the queen is finally released from the push in cage she is more easily accepted.
- Combine with a queenright hive: By combining a laying worker colony with a queenright hive, the workers from the laying worker hive can be used to build up another colony. The bees from the queenright hive have already accepted their queen, and the brood pheromone plus the queen pheromone will aid in suppressing the urge to lay.
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