Hi all
To Lloyd, Dee & Murray...

There seems to be some confusion here.

I am not sure whether we are talking about the laying workers producing and
laying eggs or drones hatching from such eggs. I am talking about the onset
of laying in laying workers.

So I had a look in a few books, I was surprised by how little information
there was on the subject. Out of a couple of dozen books, all by emminent
persons, I found a vague referance by Manley to "workers quickly become
laying workers on becoming queenless". The only info I could find with any
numbers in it came from Eva Crane, she said "3 to 4 weeks for European bees
and 5 to 10 days for African Mellifera types"

Most of my personal experiance of laying workers has been in 5 frame nucs
used for mating (5 or 6 occasions) 2 full sized colonies operated by my
local association at a teaching apiary and one other case in a 5 frame nuc
of a friend.

Whilst no records of dates were kept in any of these cases, my impression is
certainly of much shorter times than 3, 4 or 5 weeks. I would stretch to 2
weeks simply because it would have been possible, but more than that would
not fit. I also do not believe there were any significant African content
apart from the residue and influence that could have occurred from some
Buckfast bees many years previous.

There may be a racial component here, as all the cases that I mention above
were strains with a high percentage content of Itallian genes. Since I have
changed over to AMM strains I have not seen a single incedence of laying
workers.

Murray said...
> Drone layers are a pain, and are rarely truly worth persevering with

I whole heartedly agree with this as the repeated effort is just not
worthwhile.

I also agree with Murray that in many cases where laying workers are assumed
there is actually a queen of some sorts present. I can state that in three
of the cases that I mentioned I passed the entire colony through a queen
excluder to seive out any possible runts. (the laying workers went through
the seive)


Best Regards & 73s... Dave Cushman, G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website...
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman