Drifting and downright squatting

**gavin** · 25-06-2013, 08:27 AM

Two colonies, ESBA1 at the association's place and one of my own, have Buckfasty bees in them now which I don't think were raised by the resident queen. Both are the westmost colonies at their sites, and in one at least the bees at the east side of the original box seemed uniform and dark but the intruders (if that is what they were) were at the other side. Frames at rt angles to the entrance and boxes facing south.

Am I witnessing the contamination of the area with imports? Will drones from them now cross with my queens? Is this subsidised from the public purse? Or is this coincidence and the queens are now finding different packets of sperm from the corner of their spermathecas?

Here are dark bees from ESBA1, close-up and more distant, and a frame with some very different looking bees from the same colony (the split with the original queen). Also Jon's plot (posted in the 'Your gallery' thread) from the sample of bees taken from the E side of the box and which were all dark.

**Jon** · 25-06-2013, 09:14 AM

Or is this coincidence and the queens are now finding different packets of sperm from the corner of their spermathecas?

I haven't got the reference at hand but that theory about 'packages' of sperm has been completely discredited - quite a while back as well. I think it was the 70s or 80s.
The sperm is completely mixed in the spermatheca so the yellow bees must be coming in from elsewhere.
What is true is that if a queen mates with 10 drones they do not all contribute an even 10%. One might contribute 40% and another a very small percentage.
There was a paper which did DNA work on the workers to work out how many drones the queen mated with and the percentage of viable sperm each contributed. No idea where that one is either but I remember reading it.

**The Drone Ranger** · 25-06-2013, 09:54 AM

Gavin I think there are some more Buckfast type bees appearing because folk are buying what is available
The swarm which was stinging as I boxed it here are buckfast type (they are normally gentle)
My theory would be don't graft from that hive
Put a Snelgrove board on following his plan to put just the queen excluder in for 3 days and add the board on day 4
That's to get the best queens less pressure to rush things ?
The bees will select the best larva and I think they will choose the ones you want them to rather than the interlopers
Jon is not convinced

Neither am I totally, but random larva selection seems likely to be worse

**Jon** · 25-06-2013, 10:40 AM

That concept you describe is known as 'cryptic female choice', ie the workers can actively select a particular larva as opposed to picking one at random. I think the jury is still out on that one. The Bibba magazine had an article on this a few years back but I was not entirely convinced. Par for the course with Bibba magazine articles actually. There has been some pure stream of consciousness stuff in it recently.

**Neils** · 29-06-2013, 07:23 PM

Originally Posted by Jon

That concept you describe is known as 'cryptic female choice', ie the workers can actively select a particular larva as opposed to picking one at random. I think the jury is still out on that one. The Bibba magazine had an article on this a few years back but I was not entirely convinced. Par for the course with Bibba magazine articles actually. There has been some pure stream of consciousness stuff in it recently.

I think it was Keith Delaplane who posited that there is essentially a 'royal' genetic line that consistently shows up in the genes of queens.

**Dark Bee** · 25-06-2013, 10:51 AM

When a colony of Italians is introduced to an apiary - one soon finds them in every hive. That has been the experience here when that has happened. Carniolans and natives are allegedly much less prone to drifting, proving that might be a different matter

. The book hives of the continent would support the claim, but the population increase in the last of a line of hives away from the prevailing wind might not!
The yellow bees which have appeared in the above hive must have come from a colony somewhere in the vicinity.