MillerThousand AnswersBeekeepingQuestions.pdf - BioBees

144 DR. miller'stheory it is still true that no bee could start in as a laying workerafter it becomes old.Q. Different writers claim that drone-laying workers are theonly ones guilty of laying eggs on the sides of a cell. Last fall Ifound a colony with a drone-laying queen of previous year's rearing,and I found lots of worker-cells with two or three eggs in acell, some at the bottom and others stuck to the sides half waydown. In such a case, is the colony liable to have laying workersacting in conjunction with the drone-laying queen?A. I think I never heard of laying workers being presentwith a laying queen, at least for any considerable time. Queenssometimes lay eggs on the sides of cells.Q. How am I to get rid of a laying worker?A. Generally the best thing to do with a colony that has layingworkers is to break it up, giving the bees to other colonies.It is difficult to get the bees to accept a queen. But if the colonyis strong enough, and you are anxious to have it continue, youcan give it a virgin just hatched, and this will pretty surely beaccepted. Or, you may exchange some or all of its combs with adheringbees for frames of brood and bees from another colonyor colonies, and the younger bees thus introduced will accept alaying queen.Q. Did you ever have any experience with laying workers ina hive where a young queen has hatched? This is my experience:On May 9 I transferred a swarm of bees from a hivewhich I expected to discard on account of its odd size. On May 30all the brood was hatched, and on examination I found a queencellalready hatched, and by searching I found the young queen.Today I went through the hive to see if the queen was laying,and all of the eggs and larva which I found were in drone-cellsand the eggs scattered about in worker-cells. I examined closelythe comb on which I found the most drone-cells, and then andthere I saw a worker doing her work. What do you think ofthat, with a young queen in the hive, and she a beauty? I closedthe hive, thinking things might right themselves if left alone,but in the afternoon I found the queen on the alighting-boarddead, with a ball of bees about her. I broke up the colony at once.Would you kindly tell me what you think of this case? When Isay they had a laying worker, I mean to say that I saw her layone of her eggs in a drone-cell.A. Your experience is quite exceptional. It is not often thata laying worker is caught in the act. In all my experience I neversaw it, I think, more than once. If your bees are Italians, it isremarkable that laying workers should appear when they did,although with some of the other races laying workers are in-