Humped Brood (Laying Workers)
Lexikon
Humped brood is the name for the characteristic, irregularly domed brood pattern that arises when drone larvae grow up in worker cells that are actually too small for them.
Humped brood is the name for the characteristic, irregularly domed brood pattern that arises when drone larvae grow up in worker cells that are actually too small for them. Because a drone larva needs more space than a worker larva, the bees have to raise the flat cell capping into a hump-like dome in order to seal the cell. It is precisely this bumpy, uneven appearance of the affected comb surface that gives it its name.
The cause is always disrupted egg-laying: either an old queen whose sperm supply has run out, a young queen who was never properly mated because of bad weather, or a colony without a queen and without young brood, in which individual worker bees instead start laying. In all three cases fertilized eggs are missing, so that only drones hatch, which are also often smaller than regular drones.
Colonies with humped brood caused by laying workers are considered practically unsalvageable, because usually several workers take part in egg-laying at the same time and a newly introduced queen is not accepted. It is common to shake out such a colony a few meters away from the apiary, so that the bees still capable of flight join neighboring colonies, while the laying workers, which are often unable to fly, are left behind.