Worker Queens

Did you know?

“In a normal honey bee colony the ovaries of worker bees do not develop and they do not lay eggs.  When a queen is removed or lost and the colony has no brood, or fails in its attempt to rear a queen, the ovaries of some workers will develop and they will lay eggs.  For experimental purposes, a queen may be removed and her replacement prevented by destroying any queen cells that the bees build in an attempt to grow a new queen.  When this is done the ovaries in about ten to fifteen percent of the worker bees will develop and they will begin to lay eggs in about two weeks.”  (Root p.491, 2007)

Did you know?

“Diagnosing laying worker colonies is not difficult.  A lour ‘roar’ brought about by worker bees fanning their winds is usually noticable when such colonies are opened.  The bees appear ‘nervous’ on the combs.  The eggs of laying workers are small and many may be found in a single cell.  They may be deposited on the sides as well as on the bottom of cells.  Most of these eggs fail to hatch;  those that do hatch develop into drones since workers cannot mate, thus their eggs are not fertilized.  Rarely, a normal queen will develop parthenogenetically, that is from an unfertilized egg, into a queen.  This happens seldom in European bees but more commonly in one subspecies of honey bees (the cape bee) from South Africa.  (Root p.491, 2007)

Did you know?

“It is usually not possible to requeen a laying worker colony, probably because the chemistry of certain of the glandular secretions in the laying workers changes, becoming similar to that of a queen.  When beekeepers find a laying worker colony they usually remove the laying worker colony from its position in the apiary, shake the bees out of the hive at the edge of the apiary, then let them drift back into the remaining hives.  Those with ovaries in advanced stages of development are killed when they move into a normal, queenright colony, or, if they continue to lay, their eggs are removed by the house bees in the queenright colony.  Combs with eggs, brood and honey and pollen are dispersed to other colonies to be cleaned and used.  There is no known danger in dispersing laying workers and their eggs in this manner.

Sometimes adding several frames of brood in all stages to a laying worker colony will reduce or eliminate the laying capacity of these workers and at the same time give the colony fertilized eggs to turn into a new queen.  The brood may produce an inhibitory effect on the laying workers.”  (Root p.491-492, 2007)

Learn about House Bees Here

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Dan Luong

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