# Introducing a new queen to a queenless hive, possible laying workers



## Jon Wolff (Apr 28, 2013)

I know of two friends who have requeened hives that had laying workers. In one case, the queen was killed through the queen cage. The beek immediately requeened, this time doing a direct release. I don't know the rationale for that, but it worked. The queen was accepted and began laying immediately. In the other case, the queen was accepted right away. I guess it all depends on the queen (perhaps the quality and strength of her pheromones) and the attitude of the workers.


----------



## thebalvenie (Feb 25, 2013)

Jon Wolff said:


> I know of two friends who have requeened hives that had laying workers. In one case, the queen was killed through the queen cage. The beek immediately requeened, this time doing a direct release. I don't know the rationale for that, but it worked. The queen was accepted and began laying immediately. In the other case, the queen was accepted right away. I guess it all depends on the queen (perhaps the quality and strength of her pheromones) and the attitude of the workers.


if michael bush were on here i would bet he'd say direct release the queen 

http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm


----------



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Not to a laying worker hive. Here is a LINK to Michael Bush's web page about dealing with laying workers.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

http://bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm

If it's laying workers, the likelyhood of success with introducing a queen is very low. Certainly, in my opinion, not worth buying a queen for. If you insist and if you have another queenright hive, I would do this. First give the laying worker hive a frame of open brood. Meanwhile keep the queen in a quite dark place and give her and her attendents one drop of water a day to keep them going. Meanwhile make a push in cage.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesfaqs.htm#pushincage
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesdoolittle.htm#ValuableQueen
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesqueenrearingsimplified.htm#pushincage
http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#The Push-in-the-Comb Cage

After a few days take a frame of emerging brood (you need to see some bees working their way out head coming out first) and put the push in cage over the emerging brood and put that in the laying worker colony. That's as good a chance as you can give her, unless you can hang onto her for three weeks and do the open brood every week for three weeks.

The ONLY situation when I do direct release of a purchased caged queen is with packages. They are queenless and have been with her several days. A caged queen direct released into a hive does not have a good chance of survival even if it was not laying workers. Worse with laying workers.

The only exception would be a laying queen on a frame with her bees can usually be introduced (frame and all) into a smoked queenless hive if it's been queenless overnight without any kind of release with good success.


----------



## rtoney (Apr 20, 2011)

If you let the lying worker hive go it will die out on it's own correct?


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>If you let the lying worker hive go it will die out on it's own correct? 

Yes. But it's better to just shake the bees on the ground and put the equipment on other hives to clean up. Then the bees can wander into other hives and not just die queenless...


----------



## llgoddj (Apr 11, 2012)

Well, I wound up "borrowing" a frame of brood from a friend, and have introduced the queen (in a cage with candy) along with the frame of brood, on Wednesday, June 5th. Today is Thursday june 6th,and did a quick inspection. It seems as thought the workers are burrowing/eating through the candy. My hopes are they are digging through because they want this queen, not because they want to kill her.

Will keep you all informed.
thanks,
larry


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Open brood will greatly improve the odds of acceptance.


----------



## Fristm (Feb 16, 2015)

What is the science behind why laying workers in a hive means low success introducing a new queen?


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Each laying worker (and there are thousands) makes a small amount of some of the pheromones of a queen. So the colony thinks it must have a queen so it won't accept a new queen. A queen cell may work. That will go off as a supersedure to the bees.


----------



## Fristm (Feb 16, 2015)

Interesting to me in that the bees biology is, in this case, working against them. Usually they have so many ways to overcome issues. Thanks.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

Mabye they are overcoming the issue. If the goal is to pass on your genes, a last batch of drones may accomplish that...


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

I've had at least one case where there appeared to be a single worker bein treated like a queen. For all I know many workers were laying, but one seemed to be 'polished' and treated like a queen. I'll see if I can find photos I took after shaking out.


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

Fristm said:


> Interesting to me in that the bees biology is, in this case, working against them. Usually they have so many ways to overcome issues. Thanks.


But it for them. In a hopelessly queenless colony, all the energy is expended raising drones to hopefully mate and preserve the liniage


----------



## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)




----------

