BUCKS COUNTY BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION

Beeks are generally independent individualists who are highly opinionated. We are often troubleshooting and resolving issues on our own before consulting the literature or other beekeepers.  I am no longer surprised by comments from experienced beekers on subjects which they have no knowledge of or practical experience with. Now everyone is entitled to an opinion and l reserve the right to my own.

On the subject of laying workers, my opinion is a colony at this point is beyond hope. There is one possible exception, which is,  in a cell builder of a queen rearing operation. I find myself in good company though, with many beekeepers who have more experience than me. In all honesty,  l have very little experience with laying workers, but l just so happen to have one laying-worker colony at present, and l have researched the topic to better understand it.

The science starts with a failing queen.  As the concentration of the queen mandibular pheromones in the hive diminishes, the physiology and .morphology of the workers begins to change. Workers raised in the absence of QMP emerge with under developed food producing mandibular glands. Also, the worker ovarioles become enlarged when raised with insufficient QMP. Thus these workers emerge unprepared to feed brood or a queen, and these disabilities are irreversible. The colony should have attempted supercedure of their queen long before this. Thus it is important for the beek not to interrupt supercedure by dispatching unwanted queen cells, but not every requeening ends in success. 

Once all brood has emerged as adults, the egg-laying worker situation becomes more aggrevated. In the absence of brood and the brood pheromone, which both larvae and pupae produce, the worker's ovaries develop fully and the egg laying begins. Brood pheromone is what suppresses the worker ovaries from developing. Generally there are multiple egg laying workers which can be as many as 25 percent of the colony. Reversing this is nearly impossible. Cutting one's loses at this point is sage advice. Introducing another 
queen or queen cell will most likely end in failure. Experience can't be taught, and as beekeepers,  we pay dearly for our education.

Losing one's bees can be traumatic and has been throughout antiquity. The Greek God of beekeping, Asclepius, lost all of his bees on several occasions. Greek mythology is a collection of folklore  to us, but it was religion to them, and provides incite  into what concerned the ancient beekeepers like Aristotle. May the God of beekimg look down favorably on us all.