(Texas) My walkaway split of March 16 has been on my mind. I determined a week ago that the split on the right has brood and eggs. But the left split had no brood and no eggs. I had only placed two medium frames of brood/eggs in the hive at the time of the split. I noticed two empty queen cells in these frames. One of them still had a fresh cap still partially attached, indicating a queen had likely recently been released.
Yesterday I checked the left hive again. After a long search, I finally found some eggs. No brood. But the question I have on my mind is whether those eggs could be coming from a worker bee. Eggs from a worker bee can only become drones (because the worker bee is a never-mated virgin).
To hedge my bets I took another frame from one of the other hives containing eggs and placed it in the suspect left split. That way they could try and make another queen if they so choose. However, I think my fears of an egg-laying worker are overblown. Most likely they are from a queen. Time will tell.
My main hive in east Dallas has now swarmed twice. Paul got the first swarm, and another friend named Jerry took the second. This is a case where my hive is more generous than me.
My captured swarm is doing great. They have enough comb for two medium supers. It’s amazing how fast they work.
I’m currently reading a book called “Honeybee Democracy” which is all about the science of swarms. I’ll review the book for this blog when I am done.
When looking at eggs, to tell if they were laid by a queen or a laying worker, there are a couple of things to look at. If laid by a queen, there will be one egg per cell, and they will be in the bottom center of the cells. If laid by a worker, there will often be more than one egg per cell, and they will be on the sides or anywhere in the cell, in haphazard positions. That is because workers have a hard time laying them in the bottom of the cell.
In that case, I think it is the queen’s eggs. Thanks for the input.
Another sign of eggs from a laying worker is the eggs “standing up on end” rather than lying down in the bottom of the cell.