A laying worker bee is a worker bee that has begun to lay eggs, a behavior usually reserved for the queen. While worker bees are generally sterile females, certain conditions can trigger their ovaries to develop. The eggs laid by these workers are unfertilized and can only develop into drones, which are male bees. This phenomenon disrupts the normal reproductive cycle and hive balance, posing a significant challenge for the colony.
How Laying Workers Emerge
Laying workers emerge due to biological and social changes within a colony. A healthy queen produces pheromones that suppress worker bee ovarian development, maintaining her sole reproductive role. When a colony loses its queen, or if the queen is failing and her pheromone production declines, this suppressive signal weakens.
Without the queen’s strong pheromonal influence, some worker bees’ ovaries develop, allowing them to lay eggs. This process typically takes several weeks after the queen’s absence or decline. It is important to note that these laying workers are not true queens; they have not mated.
Identifying Laying Worker Activity
Identifying laying worker activity involves observing specific signs. A common indicator is multiple eggs in a single cell, sometimes in startling numbers. While a newly mated queen might occasionally lay more than one egg per cell, laying workers often lay eggs erratically, placing them on cell sides or even on pollen, rather than centered at the bottom.
Another sign is a scattered or patchy brood pattern, with empty cells interspersed among capped brood. The presence of drone brood in worker-sized cells is a clear indication. Drones require larger cells with distinct, blunt-pointed cappings. Finding them in smaller worker cells with protruding caps suggests laying worker activity. Hives with laying workers may also exhibit an unusual temperament, often becoming aggressive.
Consequences for the Colony
Laying workers have severe consequences for colony survival. Drones do not contribute to essential hive tasks like foraging, nursing young, or building comb. A colony dominated by laying workers experiences a rapid decline in its worker bee population.
Without new worker bees to replace those that die off, the colony’s workforce diminishes, leading to a breakdown in hive maintenance and food collection. This imbalance ultimately results in the colony dwindling and perishing due to a lack of productive worker bees and an inability to raise a new, fertile queen.
Addressing Laying Workers in the Hive
Beekeepers employ various strategies to address laying worker situations, though success rates vary.
Introducing a New Queen
One common approach involves introducing a new queen, either virgin or mated, to re-establish hive dynamics. However, requeening can be challenging, as existing workers may perceive the new queen as a rival and kill her due to heightened pheromone levels.
Introducing Young Brood
Another method is to introduce frames of young, open brood from a healthy, queen-right colony. The pheromones from this young brood can suppress laying worker ovarian development, and the colony may attempt to raise a new queen from the introduced eggs or larvae. This process may require adding multiple frames of brood over several weeks.
Combining Colonies
Combining the affected colony with a healthy, queen-right colony is another technique, often using the newspaper method to allow bees to gradually merge and accept the new queen. The healthy colony’s queen pheromones help restore order and suppress laying workers.
Shaking Out Bees
A more drastic measure, sometimes used for smaller, severely affected colonies, is “shaking out” the bees. This involves moving the hive a significant distance (e.g., 100 feet or more) and shaking all bees out onto the ground. The theory is that foraging bees will fly back to the original hive location (where a new, queen-right nucleus colony might be placed), while younger, laying workers, less familiar with the outside world, will disperse and potentially join other colonies, or perish.