Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
She will appear normal, and if she is accepted by the colony, she will begin laying
eggs. She lays them in regular worker cells, but none of them are fertilized; therefore,
they all produce drones. This is very confusing for the colony, and also for you, initially.
It will take seven to ten days to recognize the situation, which is a great waste of time
for the colony because this queen needs to be replaced immediately. This imbalance can
also happen when an older queen eventually depletes her store of sperm and is unable
to produce fertilized worker eggs. This is usually first noticed in the brood area. The
usual solid pattern of closed cells will have open cells in places and a few drone cells
scattered throughout the frame, instead of along the edges, as is the normal location of
drone cells. It occurs gradually, over two or three weeks, so you should notice the in-
crease and order a replacement queen. The colony, too, usually recognizes this condi-
tion as a failing queen because the population becomes unbalanced, signaling a series
of behaviors resulting in supersedure. To prevent a lapse in laying or a battle among
emerging queens, look for supersedure cells and remove them before introducing a new
queen that you have ordered.
Laying-Worker Fix
A variety of mishaps—old age, injury, diseases, mites, exposure to pesticides—can be-
fall a queen and cause her to stop laying eggs. Normally, a colony will note this change
and begin preparations for producing a new queen: an emergency supersedure. Critical
to this event is the presence of eggs, or larvae that are three days old or younger. These
very young larvae have had only royal jelly as a diet. Older larvae have been switched
to the less nutritious worker jelly, causing permanent physiological changes in their de-
velopment. But sometimes communications break down, and the message that the ex-
isting queen is malfunctioning doesn't make it to the workers. By the time the problem
is discovered, if at all, there may be no eligible larvae or eggs available, and the colony
cannot by itself produce a new queen.
Without the queen's regulating presence, the ovaries of some workers begin to de-
velop, and they gain the ability to lay eggs. Because they have no capacity to mate, all
of the eggs they lay are unfertilized and will develop into small but functioning drones.
