Ted Wout wrote:
 
> I have noticed that sometimes the cells in this burr comb have more than
> one egg in them.  It's not laying workers because the queen is free and
> laying away.  Could it be that the first few layings are haphazard and it
> takes the queen a few trials to get things under control?  I've only
> noticed this twice and thought that maybe I had laying workers.  After
> further inspection, I had a queen and everything was fine.  Has anyone else
> noticed this?
>
> Ted Wout
> Red Oak, TX
 
Hi Ted -
 
I just noticed this happening to one of my hives this last week. For whatever reason, I
had a hive that was queenless so I put in a couple of frames that had fresh eggs. Last
week all the emergency queen cells were open. I pulled one frame out and noticed half the
cells had at least 2-4 eggs in them. I assumed that I had a laying worker and was ready
to tear the hive down and combine with another. Then a much wiser beekeeper on this
list suggested I make sure that there wasn't a queen in the hive as it is somewhat
common for a newly mated queen to lay several eggs in a cell at first. I went back out
and went throught the hive and finally found a queen, small as she was. I would say
that half of the cells with eggs in this hive had more than one egg in them.
 
Not having had experienced this before, I mentioned it to another beekeeper on the list
and he felt that the erratic egg laying is fairly common, as they don't seem
to have the necessary knowledge to get it right and that the bees will eventually
superscede and replace her. Remember, I'm talking about a queen raised the
"emergency" method here. The bees from my hive in question could have shortened the
days to sealing by using larvae which was too old, thus producing intercastes. Not
quite a queen and not a worker. I guess time will tell as I marked her so I can keep tabs
on what happens.
 
Interesting behavior for sure.
 
-Barry
 
--
Barry Birkey
West Chicago, Illinois  USA
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http://www.birkey.com