Garth wrote:
 
> Is this a sensible way of dealing with hives that go laying worker?
> I am making the assumption that a laying worker that lays drone eggs
> will be treat in the same fashion. Has anybody else tried it and how
> successful has it been if so? I fear that there will be less swarms
> coming up, and I still have two other LW hives, but do not want to
> risk damaging two swarms if this one success was a fluke?
 
It worked so it is evidently a workable method.  In my opinion, from
about as far away as one can get, it is overly conservative.  I have
requeened our normal laying worker hives, by simply using one as a queen
bank and releasing one left-over queen after a few weeks.  She began
laying and all returned to normal.
 
You will probably hear that the normal method of requeening a laying
worker hive is to simply combine it, via the newspaper method, and
forget it.  You can also put a queen-right colony above a screen board
(and their own entrance, and let them get aquainted that way.
 
From my perspective (a very short season) caging the queen is a
technique to be used only in specific hive management maneuvers.  It
stops egg laying, and that is only desirable if you want a break in the
brood cycle.
 
But, your method sure seems to be trustworthy to me.
 
--
"Test everything.  Hold on to the good."  (1 Thessalonians 5:21)
 
Tom Elliott
Chugiak,  Alaska
U.S.A.
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