Hi Everyone,
I have just finished checking my hives (I have 10) to make sure they all have
plenty of room, and don't need additional supers.  Whilst I was doing this, I
noticed something that I have never seen before.  I have been keeping bees for
about 10 years, but only a few hives, so it may be that this is quite common,
but since I have never seen mention of it, thought I would post to the list and
see what others think...
One of my hives recently became queenless (don't know why - I may have damaged
her during manipulation), anyway, I re-queened with a queen cell from another
colony, and she eventually started laying fine.  However, when I checked the
hive today, I noticed that the cells in a large part of one frame all had eggs
layed in them - but not just one, many had 3 or 4 eggs in and some even 5.  I
have seen laying workers' eggs before, but these have always been sparodic -
here and there.  These were layed over a large area, with no gaps.  What is
more, the larvae and capped brood elsewhere in the hive looked fine.
One additional clue, which may be germain to the situation - I usually use what
we in the UK call ' a brood and a half' - ie a deep brood and a shallow (super)
for the brood nest and then a Q.E. and then honey supers above this.  In this
particular case, the brood frames did not seem to be to the bees liking, and
they didn't seem to want to use them.  This may have been because a family of
slugs had moved into the hive, and had left slime trails all over the brood
frames.  The result of this was that the bees seemed to be using only the
shallow super frames and I wonder whether the queen simply does not have enough
room to lay all the eggs she is producing ?
As remedial action, I cleaned out all the slugs (they were huge!), and swopped
the two chambers around - so that the deep was above the shallow that the bees
are using, in the hope that they will now start to use the deep frames also.
So the questions are these.  Could the multiple eggs be 'normal' Queen eggs, or
are they more likely to be laying workers' eggs.  If so, is it usual for them to
lay in a packed form like this? - and what about laying workers when there is a
Queen?
 
Grateful for any response from the list.
Barry Green
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