A poll for the people who raise their own queens

[drumgerry]

Yep - old drones = more semen (jeez did I just say that?!). So another cross against DR's idea I'm afraid.

[Pete L]

They will die very quickly if not well cared for, they stay alive best if kept warm and have some caged workers with fondant, within their flight box.

[The Drone Ranger]

OH well another one bites the dust

[Rosie]

I didn't think it was that bad an idea DR. If you've acquired a virgin from a race that's different to your own then selecting drones from the sky might be better than open mating them - even if the selection process is not perfect. It sounds a bit time consuming though. I think I would prefer to get a mated queen in the first place.

[The Drone Ranger]

Drumgerry in an earlier post mentioned the wing scan doubts

I think that sort of just means if you see a blond person with blue eyes that doesn't make them Scandanavian
But if you see someone with black curly hair and brown eyes they probably wont be

On the blue eye subject I thought "I'll check that assumption about Scandinavia"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...Black-Sea.html
Unfortunately it's from the Daily Mail but still points to why its not a reliable test of nationality

I thought that there was some correlation between drone and worker bees wing scan test
I think it might be better to positively identify a queen race by sampling one drone
That would not help if grafting from her larva but would be better for II purposes (using her drone)

[Adam]

I read, can't remember where, that the number of swarm cells in a colony is an indicator of how swarmy the bees are?

Roger Patterson has mentioned this and I don't think it's a widely held view. Roger has been messing about with bees for a long time and will, presumably, have come up with the hypothesis and then tested it in his head for many years.

Is there a difference between the decision to swarm - swarmy bees - and then actually going about the business of raising queens?

[Adam]

I know there's only 21 votes (so far) .

Now 24.

[Rosie]

Roger Patterson has mentioned this and I don't think it's a widely held view. Roger has been messing about with bees for a long time and will, presumably, have come up with the hypothesis and then tested it in his head for many years.

I think Beowulf Cooper said it when he was assessing native bees in the 60s and 70s. I wouldn't be surprised if it had even been noticed before him. I would dispute the statement that it's not a widely held view. It's used by some as one of their selection criteria.

[masterbk]

The link between the number of Swarm queen cells and degree of swarmyness with colonies producing after swarms (secondary swarms or casts) is, I believe, alot to do with number of queens in their cells piping. The more mature cells the more virign queens there are to pipe. With alot of piping the workers are more likely protect the other V. queens trapped in their cells from an emerged virgin queen and will only let another one out when that queen has flown the nest with a cast.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Masterbk

That's interesting and thought provoking
If a large number of queen cell are produced and they are from larva who are a composite of their parents ie one mother and different fathers they are only partly related
Likewise the worker bees are not all that closely related so would they share a behaviour pattern like protecting piping cells ?
Yet we all know there are colonies which swarm themselves out so it could be correct