From: "Susan Adams" <[log in to unmask]> > I have a colony of laying workers...getting a new queen next > week...any suggestions on how I should handle this Don't waste your queen on a futile effort to requeen the laying worker hive. Instead use your new queen to make a nuc from a good colony, with normal brood. After she is established, put the nuc in the place where the laying worker hive was (make sure they have room enough for the bees they will gain). Give them some syrup so they'll all be happy when the bees mix. Take the laying worker hive away, maybe a hundred feet. You can leave it for a couple hours of flight to let the older bees go back to the home site and join the nuc. This will make the next job easier, because only gentle young bees will be left, if there are any young bees. (Laying worker hives that have been that way for a long time will only have old bees.) Then shake out the bees that are left. The young bees will find and rejoin a hive; the laying worker(s) will probably not, or they will be thought to be queens and killed at the entrance of any hive they try to enter. When most of the bees have been shaken out, you can use the box as a super on another hive. You see, laying workers are recognized by the bees as their queen; though it is a false idea, it is firmly held by the bees. A laying worker hive gets full of old bees and often they can be really mean. They will usually kill an introduced queen. Dave Green SC USA The Pollination Home Page (Now searchable): http://pollinator.com