In article <000f01c22446$69cabc40$323ee150@cushman>, Dave Cushman
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>This is more like five or six days in UK.. In 5 weeks we would only have
>about 50% of a colony left, and that is with bees that have an adult life of
>about 8 weeks as opposed to 6 that is considered 'normal'

Sorry to have to disagree here Dave, but cannot say that this matches my
experience, which is much closer to Lloyds version of events.

FWIW, I find colonies reduced to laying workers level, and apparently
thinking they are queenright as such, are actually pretty rare. I will
not find more than a couple a year out of our unit, and regard them as
something to cull, not attempt to cure.

Almost without exception, when someone thinks they have laying workers,
they actually have a queen in there which for a variety of reasons they
have not found and which is laying drone. The tricky ones are the little
intercastes from poor and late emergency cells, which do not mate and
lay a sporadic and sparse pattern.

Drone layers are a pain, and are rarely truly worth persevering with.
Much more productive to just shake them out and spit a queenright hive
to refill the box, although placing it then back on the original stand
is unwise and sometime just leads to the drone layer moving back in, so,
if you wish to do that, kill the queen if you have time to find her.
--
Murray McGregor