Drone Brooding (Laying Workers)
Krankheiten
A colony is drone-brooding when only unfertilized eggs are laid, producing exclusively drones.
A colony is drone-brooding when only unfertilized eggs are laid, producing exclusively drones. Two causes are possible. If a colony remains queenless and without open brood for an extended period, individual workers develop their ovaries after about three weeks and begin laying, known as laying workers (Drohnenmütterchen). Less often, an unmated or exhausted queen is the cause.
The condition is recognized by humped brood: because drone larvae have no room in the too-small worker cells, the cell cappings bulge noticeably outward. The brood nest looks irregular and patchy. A second, very reliable sign is several eggs in a cell, stuck untidily to the cell wall instead of neatly centered at the cell base, because the worker's abdomen does not reach the cell base. With a drone-laying queen, by contrast, usually only one egg per cell is found, in a regular pattern.
A colony with laying workers usually cannot be saved by introducing a queen. The laying workers generally do not accept the new queen and kill her. Brushing the bees off in front of the hive has therefore proven effective: before brushing, smoke is applied and a few minutes are allowed to pass, so the bees fill up on honey. The bees are then brushed off the combs some distance from the apiary, often ten to twenty meters away and onto light ground. The normal flying bees beg their way into other colonies, while the sluggish laying workers usually do not find their way back.
The combs are then put to use: usable food combs can be given to other colonies, while old combs riddled with humped brood are melted down. Alternatively, the colony can be united with a strong, queenright colony, but this should be done carefully, since laying workers could otherwise be taken over along with it.
Prevention is easier than cure. Anyone who regularly checks for eggs and the youngest larvae during inspections and recognizes a queenless colony early can introduce a queen in time or give a brood comb with the youngest brood. Dragging a drone-brooding colony along for weeks or repeatedly introducing new queens to it should be avoided, as this only costs queens and time.