>I'm having some trouble with laying workers in a queen rearing setup, and
I'm
>hoping to get some advice from some of you who may have already solved this
>problem
>How can I keep a queenless starter-finisher from developing laying workers?
> I've been using swarm boxes and queenright finishers up to now, and I was
>hoping to simplify things by just putting grafts into a queenless unit.  I
>suppose I could add open brood to the builder to inhibit the laying workers,
>but then I'd be back to searching to for swarm cells once more.
>
>Any ideas?
>
>
 
Kevin
From you post it would appear that you know the following but for the
uninformed and FYI.
 
Sealed Brood will not stop you from having laying workers no matter how
offten you add it. The only two things that I Know of that will stop workers
from laying are as follows:
 
1. A Queen
2. Open brood.
 
In fact a study was done in the USA about the very thing that you are having
trouble with and it was found that the open brood was a stronger deterent to
laying workers than was a Queen. Just having the queen in the hive will not
discourge laying workers. Very large colonies quite often will have laying
workers high up in suppers etc.
 
One other note It has been found that while there are as many methods of
raising queens as there are people raising queens. The method that keeps
coming up with the best queens is the method that you started with. Raising
Queens in a queen right colonie has definite advantages over the queenless
methods. In experiments with the method that you are using which is know as a
collective colonies TARANOV got only 32.2% of his Queens with a weight of
over 200mg. Whereas he got 51.7 percent over 200 mg in queenright coloines.
It is an accepted fact that the heaver a queen the larger number of ovaries
that she contains. ( a drop in weight of 10 mg can have the net result of 40
ovaries) queens with weights of 200 mg. have been shown to have an avarge of
330 ovaries.
 
Before I start a flame session on the bee-L about queen rearing methods, let
me also state the following. The method that you use is far less important
than the condition of the colonie and its capacity to nurse the queen cells,
Queen less or Queen right each of the methods will produce good queens.
 
In regards to you question about laying workers. I have no good news to give
you it is one of the pitfalls of that type of Queen rearing. Most of the
operations that use that method, use the colonies 30 days and then start
over. There is a method close to the one you are using that will enable you
to raise queens in a queen less Colony see Steve Tabers book Breeding Super
Bees. He has a method which works well.
 
If you have any other Questions I will be happy to help. You can contact me
at my phone number or Email address any time.
 
Dean M. Breaux
Executive Vice President
Hybri-Bees "Breeding Better Bees"
11140 Fernway Lane
Dade City, Florida USA 33525
(352) 521-0164