Scott! Oh man I hope you can work out the queen issue with the rockstar hive!!! and,,,, you and that darn smoker!!!! LOL.... one day my friend it will stay lit for you....
Just a thought, im only a few minutes in but.. My understanding in a case of a laying worker hive. If you literally dump all the bees out at the entrance , put a branch at the entrance and put the queen cage in. It takes the bees a bit to figure out whats going on and disrupt the laying worker, takes time for the bees to return and may have better luck
Hi there! I did consider that, as well as shaking them out far away as some beeks feel the laying workers don't always make it back, solving the issue, but this is the one I settled on. Thanks for watching and commenting 😀
There are other methods of stopping laying workers, but I chose a push cage because I believed it was best suited for this specific situation. A queenless colony will accept a new queen using the cage they come in, release her like they do from a package, but a LW colony won't because they believe they already have a queen (LW'ers) so the would kill her in small cage. Placing her in the push cage protects her & gives her space to lay eggs which will assist the pheromones from her and the donated open brood in stopping the LW'ers, and allow the colony the accept the real queen over the LW'ers. They might still chose the LW'er and kill her in the push cage, but the push cage offers more/longer protection than the small cage. *"SPOILER"* stay tuned for a twist! Thanks for watching.
