Subject: Newly mated queens

From: [email-masked] (-verville d.f.)
Date: Sat, 27 May 1995 16:58:35 GMT

Several weeks ago, I started to make a new queen by putting a couple 
of frames with eggs into a nuc box.
Two weeks ago I saw what I thought was the queen but she hadn't started
to lay yet. All of the brood had emerged. 
Today at hign noon, with no smoke, I openned it again,  (4X)
I did not see the queen but I did see eggs and some other STRANGE things!
First I should say that the bees were very content! (Red pollen again!)

1 There were three queen cells with two and three eggs inside.
2 There were some cells with two or three eggs inside.
3 There were cells with eggs attached to the very bottom but at the sides.
  Some eggs where not at the bottom but half way up an the sides.
4 There were many many cells where the egg was perfectly 
  centered as they should be.
5 There where eggs outside the pollen/honey band.

I am assuming that there is a mated queen, she just has not got her act 
together or shall I assume a laying worker.
I guess I will really know a week from now as the cells get capped.
Any one ever see this before?
Dave Verville  New Hampshire USA
att!mvtowers!mvdfv

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From: A. J. deLange <[email-masked]>
Date: 28 May 1995 01:15:19 GMT

>Dave Verville  New Hampshire USA

I'm very new to this so that what I'm going to say is "book learnin' but 
1,2,3, and 5 all sound like the activities of a laying worker. The good
news
is the multiplicity of cells with a properly placed egg. This is
undoubtedly 
the work of a normal queen. Were these placed more recently than the 
multiple/irregular eggs? The other good news is that the bees are
"content"
by which I assume that you mean that their activities are normal. This is
another sign that a normal queen is in residence.

AJ
[email-masked]
a normal queen

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From: "K.J.M.Hooker" <[email-masked]>
Date: 29 May 1995 11:41:15 +0100

>From  your comments/analysis of the bees I think you have a laying 
worker for the following reasons:

1.  Unless your two frames of eggs for the nuc were liberally covered with 
nurse bees and more added to the nuc box your chances of raising a 
good queen successfully were marginal from the outset.

2.  A nuc taken from a queenright hive can and does produce laying 
workers quicker than a queen.

3.  You mention seeing a number of eggs in 'queen cells' but do not 
state if royal jelly was present.  I assume it was not as this is the 
situation I have observed.  These eggs will be the product of a laying 
worker.

4.  Laying workers can and do lay in the base of a cell, the tell-tale 
clue to their presence is the ones they lay part way up the cell.  A 
full queen can not achieve laying part way up a cell.

Solution - 

1.  Either destroy the nuc or throw the contents into a 
swarm before running into a hive.

2.  Raise queens in large healthy colonies, putting the laying 
queen in a spare nuc or box for safety, or give the colony a second 
brood box with a few frames of eggs over a queen excluder over the 
supers over the original brood box with its queen, and with a top entrance.

Have fun - but remember bees cannot read.

Keith JM Hooker BA MIPD
Technology Management Ltd
Whitstable, Kent, UK, EC (just)