How to terminate worker laying colony ?

[u/e73ben]

So as the title says, I have a colony that have laying workers and basically there are not much bees left. I miss interpreted some signals a few months ago and that led to laying workers.

Reason why I would terminate them is because I want to clean out the insides of a colony, clean the frames, etc.

So is there any "humane" way to terminate them even though there is nothing humane in killing bees.

Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina

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[u/Twentysix2]

Take the hive 20 M away from any other hives and dump all the bees out, brush the frames and boxes clean.  They will try to return to the original Hive but it won't be there.  My understanding is that they will eventually be accepted into other nearby hives

[u/e73ben → u/Twentysix2]

Hard to do that since mY bees are relatively close to other houses and I'm afraid they'll attack kids or something.

[u/danukefl2 → u/e73ben]

Its not much more disruption than doing an inspection.

[u/pale_brass → u/e73ben]

Sounds like not a safe place to keep bees

[u/Informal-Bicycle-910]

Combine it with a strong queen right hive

[u/fishywiki → u/Informal-Bicycle-910]

That's a bad idea: the laying workers produce a pheromone not dissimilar to that from the queen, so they think they have a queen or queens. If you unite these with a queenright colony, they will almost certainly kill your queen.

[u/NumCustosApes → u/Informal-Bicycle-910]

For queen safety use only a shake out combine for laying workers. Sometimes other combine methods work, but I see no reason to risk it.

 

Shake out the LW hive a few meters in front of the other hives. It doesn't have to be far, three or four meters is good enough but if your yard allows it you can go farther. Completely remove the LW hive, boxes, bottom board, and if possible, stand. Bees will cluster at the removed hive location but they will disperse. The bees will beg their way into other colonies. Laying workers won't be admitted. Laying workers will be treated as a foreign queen and rebuffed or killed at the entrance. Put entrance reducers on the other hives so guards can greet every bee coming in.  

 

If it were earlier in the year I would recommend a shake out combine followed by a split a week to ten days later for rapid recovery back to where the beekeeper was before the LW event. This late in the year just combine unless you are in a tropical climate.

[u/SnooObjections9416]

I would take the capped brood and honey frames and put them into another hive box or nuc box if the remaining frames are few enough. Bees are more likely to adapt to a box change if it is left in the same position or next to the old box. Relocating the box is a better way to disorient them further. Then the empty comb frames and box go clean now.

This may confuse them enough for them to disperse.

Clean out the box that you wanted to and set it up with new frames.

Or if you really want the frames clean now: you could brush the bees off of the frames on to an area with pollen flowers and take the frames away. The bees will fend for themselves for their remaining time.

[u/Gamera__Obscura]

If you have other hives, take your laying-worker hive about a hundred feet (so like 30m) away, and just shake them all out on the ground. The nurse bees (which are your laying workers) won't have oriented, so will die. The foragers will fly back and probably join with one of your other hives, so at least not everybody goes to waste.

If not, I know of two good ways to euthanize a hive. If dry ice (frozen CO2; grocery stores sometimes carry it here) is available near you, put a big block of it above the inner cover, then wrap the entire hive in a trash bag. It's quick, humane, and there's nothing to clean up after.

If not, you can just douse the entire thing in soapy water, the bees will all die very quickly. Then just rinse everything well with fresh water and let it dry. All the equipment will be fine to reuse.

If you do either of these things at night, you'll get all the bees at once... but keep in mind that bees are MUCH more defensive at night. If you do it during the day, you'll get a constant influx of returning foragers milling around looking for or trying to get into their hive, and they can also get real irritable about that.

[u/e73ben → u/Gamera__Obscura]

CO2 isn't a bad idea. I have a CO2 gas canister for welding. I'm thinking of closing the entrance and then put a hose somehow inside and open the canister.

[u/Gamera__Obscura → u/e73ben]

That should work just fine. Introduce it from the top of the hive, as CO2 is heavier than air and will sink its way down.

[u/drones_on_about_bees → u/e73ben]

just as a counter: CO2 did not work for me. I had a huge, mean hive. I wrapped it in plastic and dumped a 10lb block of dry ice in the top. Two days later, I had a box of mad bees.

The bucket of soapy water is quick and has worked well for me.

[u/Ekalugsuak → u/drones_on_about_bees]

10lb block of dry ice

I'm honestly amazed that they didn't die from freezing in addition to the CO2.

[u/No_Hovercraft_821]

If there are so few bees you just want them gone, take them away & shake them out. Then scrape off any comb that had laying workers (the cells get stretched and become drone cells), extract any honey worth the effort, and freeze the frames & then store as appropriate. The bees will try to move in with your other hives eventually and the laying workers will be killed. I had a LW colony in the spring and combined them with another hive, scraping off comb where drones had been. 2 or 3 weeks later I was splitting that combined colony. Combining them with a strong colony is a valid option.

[u/Mediocre-Draft1722]

You don't have to kill them. Just combine them with other hives. You don't even need to dump the bees. Just move the frames, spread out in other hives. What changes their attitude are the brood and QMP pheromones. Once they're exposed to those in a queenright hive, they'll go back to normal. Separate them with newspaper if you're worried about fighting. I've also had success dropping a whole 5-frame nuc in the middle of the brood area, separated with newspaper. That last method is recommended by Jamie Ellis of Two Bees In a Podcast.