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Chalkbrood
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<blockquote data-quote="Alastair" data-source="post: 8902" data-attributes="member: 13"><p>Hmm.. One egg per cell and centrally placed would indicate a drone laying queen, not laying workers.</p><p></p><p>How does a queen become a drone layer? If she has no stored sperm she can only lay unfertilised eggs that will become drones. That can happen to queens when they get old, or to queens that were for some reason unable to mate. Such as, trapped above a queen excluder. One way such can happen is that unknown to the beekeeper the hive has a new virgin queen. The beekeeper opens the hive and the virgin takes flight. The virgin returns but lands in a super, which the beekeeper then places above a queen excluder.</p><p></p><p>Yes if there is a drone laying queen above the excluder, which sounds likely, if you can find and squash her, problem solved. But they can be hard to find, another method is to put the supers in a wheel barrow and take 20 or 30 meters away from the hive. Shake all the bees onto the grass, and return the supers to the hive. pretty much all the bees except the queen will find their way back to the hive.</p><p></p><p>If all that fails, do a paper combine as described a few posts ago. Once the bees have sorted themselves out and accepted the good queen, they will often kill the drone layer. Just, don't let the two queens come into contact and fight, the drone layer may sometimes win.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Alastair, post: 8902, member: 13"] Hmm.. One egg per cell and centrally placed would indicate a drone laying queen, not laying workers. How does a queen become a drone layer? If she has no stored sperm she can only lay unfertilised eggs that will become drones. That can happen to queens when they get old, or to queens that were for some reason unable to mate. Such as, trapped above a queen excluder. One way such can happen is that unknown to the beekeeper the hive has a new virgin queen. The beekeeper opens the hive and the virgin takes flight. The virgin returns but lands in a super, which the beekeeper then places above a queen excluder. Yes if there is a drone laying queen above the excluder, which sounds likely, if you can find and squash her, problem solved. But they can be hard to find, another method is to put the supers in a wheel barrow and take 20 or 30 meters away from the hive. Shake all the bees onto the grass, and return the supers to the hive. pretty much all the bees except the queen will find their way back to the hive. If all that fails, do a paper combine as described a few posts ago. Once the bees have sorted themselves out and accepted the good queen, they will often kill the drone layer. Just, don't let the two queens come into contact and fight, the drone layer may sometimes win. [/QUOTE]
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