Eierleggende werksters

De koninginnenstof van de koningin en feromonen van het open broed onderdrukt het ontstaan van eierstokken bij de werkbijen. Bij afwezigheid van een koningin kunnen echter ook werkbijen (in geringere mate dan een koningin) overgaan tot het leggen van eitjes en het verspreiden van koninginnestof. Omdat dit onbevruchte eitjes betreft zullen er alleen darren geboren worden. Op de langere termijn gaat het volk hoe dan ook ten gronde gaan (tenzij de bijenhouder succesvol ingrijpt).

De aanwezigheid van eierleggende werksters is duidelijk herkenbaar doordat er meerdere eitjes in een cel zitten.

Removing a laying worker is difficult for a number of reasons. Laying workers may not appear different from other workers. Also, in hives where a laying worker develops, multiple workers will lay, meaning that killing a worker spotted laying will not resolve the problem. Introducing a new queen bee to a hive with a laying worker is difficult, as the colony considers itself queenright, and will not accept the new queen. Beekeepers have developed a number of methods for requeening laying worker hives, including:

Add open brood: It is the lack of pheromones from open brood that causes the problem, so you can just add a frame of open brood every week until they start queen cells. Usually after two or three weeks they will raise a queen. At this point you can introduce a queen or let them finish raising their own. Shake outs: In a shake out, the bees are carried several hundred yards from their hive, and then shaken from the frames. Shaking the bees off too close to their original hive location risks them finding their way home by smell. The non-laying older bees, field bees, return to the old hive location, which may already have a queen in a queen cage waiting. The laying workers, younger nurse bees who have never left the hive, have never oriented to the hive so don't know their way back and will stay clustered and lost where brushed from their frames till they die. Requeen via Push in Cage: A push in cage is a plastic cage that can be pushed into the wax comb. It prevents bees outside the cage from reaching the queen. The new queen can lay in the enclosed cells, which usually include emerging brood. The bees that emerge in the push in cage will accept the queen and care for her. When the queen is finally released from the push in cage she is more easily accepted. Combine with a queenright hive: By combining a laying worker colony with a queenright hive, the workers from the laying worker hive can be used to build up another colony. The bees from the queenright hive have already accepted their queen, and the brood pheromone plus the queen pheromone will aid in suppressing the urge to lay.