In this tutorial, Laurence Edwards revisits an AMM (Artificially Managed Mating) colony originally sourced from Jonathan Getty to assess its health and progress. He notes the colony’s strong appearance but expresses concerns about potential swarming and the timing of super placement. Upon opening the hive, he discovers that the queen has become a drone‑laying queen, likely due to a recent supersedure or swarming event that introduced genetic variation. Edwards explains how the mixed bee coloration suggests a recent queen replacement or swarm, leading to the queen’s shift to drone brood production. He outlines a rescue plan: remove and burn the frames filled with drone brood, then introduce a new mated queen to restore a functional colony. Throughout, he reflects on his beekeeping decisions, acknowledges the frustration of the failure, and emphasizes that drone‑laying colonies are relatively easy to correct with proper intervention.
Chapters
Last time we looked inside the AMM colony from Jonathan Getty, I was surprised at how big and how strong they were for that point of the year. Still had a little bit of an issue with chalkbrood. Temperament was good, and today we're going to go inside and take a look and see how they're getting on. Every other colony in this apiary here, I put the supers on too late and I've been running around trying to fix things here. Will it be the same with the AMMs? Will they have swarmed early, or have I got the timing just right? So looking in from the top, I'm a little bit happier with these than I am with the rest of my colonies. They've not gone wild, they've not got too big, but you know, I could pull out the frames and we see swarm cells, so I won't hold my breath. Let's get inside, take a look, see if they've built up and see if they're ready for a super. So still quite a lot of honey in here. Little bit concerned that I'm going to have restricted these too much and these are going to have swarmed as well. I'll only know when I get in further and get some more frames out. Right, so we're into some frames where there would have been some brood. That is just like an empty frame, little bit of stores around the rings. Hmm, I'm a little bit concerned that these guys have gone and swarmed due to So this will be my mistake. And right, we've got a little bit of an issue here. I think the queen has turned drone layer, almost certainly turned drone layer, because when we came in before, there were still bees there. Not going to have been long enough for them to have swarmed in that time and then the queen to have gone out and then turned drone layer, because it was only like 3 weeks ago. But ouch, look at that! That is the end of the AMM colony. They are 100% drone layer. Really frustrating, this one. This was my one AMM colony and it's turned drone laying. I have to say though, I do think they've either tried to supersede the queen or they've had a go at swarming because I'm seeing a little bit more mixture in the bees in terms of color. When I went in previously, maybe 4 or 5 weeks ago, they were really dark. And I'll flash back to the video and I'll just have to double check because maybe I didn't clock it at the time. They've either tried to supersede late on in the year And I've just not noticed it, or they've superseded early in the year, or they've swarmed. And then as a result of that superseder or the swarm, they've turned drone laying because there is a lot more genetic variation in the bees that I'm seeing here. So she obviously got mated a little bit, laid a few, and then turned drone laying. What a nightmare. Really, really gutted. Wasn't expecting that. As always though, I'll show you my mistakes. My AMM queen from Jonathan Getty is no more. Got a drone laying colony instead. Luckily, drone laying colonies, easy fix. There's still quite a lot of bees in here. I'll take out the worst affected frames like this where it is just all drone brood, and I'll burn these down, add in a new mated queen, and hopefully we can get this colony back on the mend.
