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Thread: Apiary Vicinity mating again

  1. #21
    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    Wow..seems like a lot of drones invading an apidea.

    So, The workers, drones and queen all come out at the same time. The workers and drones fly around aimlessly. Is the queen part of this mini swarm or does she fly away off to mate ?

  2. #22
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by busybeephilip View Post
    Wow..seems like a lot of drones invading an apidea.

    So, The workers, drones and queen all come out at the same time. The workers and drones fly around aimlessly. Is the queen part of this mini swarm or does she fly away off to mate ?
    The movement is not aimless. It is circular over the apiary and the queen is in it. I have seen her in the air once or twice. It is not high up, only about 10 feet off the ground. We saw the end of this at Minnowburn yesterday as we were leaving, about 5 of us present. The bees had just lifted off and were returning to an apidea and were all over the front of it. It happens at every apiary I have so it's not location specific.

  3. #23
    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    Do you see the queen in the swarm actually being pursued by the drones within the swarm ?

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    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    You really need to organize some fiming for next season to try and get the mating recorded.

    As one internationally respected expert* on bee sex commented to me, after taking the time to read through the previous AVM thread 'proof.... would create an international sensation (in scientific circles)'.

    *Private conversation, so I won't be elaborating further at this time.

  5. #25
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I don't see any drone comet associated with this.

  6. #26
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I have little snippets of various stages of this but getting the entire sequence recorded from start to finish would be quite a challenge.

  7. #27
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    This is the little cluster you get after the mating swarm.
    This was 12 July 2014


  8. #28
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    This preceded the little cluster settling

    There are bees moving right to left in the shot as well towards hives to the left so it is not that clear.


  9. #29
    Senior Member busybeephilip's Avatar
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    There is definitely some sort of swarming behavior going on - no doubt on that. I have observed this same thing in my own Amm bess but also to some extent in other races with bees in mating nucs.

    whether it can be described as mating is a bit up in the air (pun) as no comet is observed and no mating sign seen on the queens return or in the wee cluster of bees (as far as i am aware from Jons comments).

    Have never seen them returning to an apidea before but i can think of reasons for that scenario to happen in relation to absconding

    The fact that the queen begins to lay a few days later is irrelevant and does not prove that this swarming is a mating event, she could mate day before, before on the same day, after on the same day or the day after the swarming event


    As Prakel says .. if this was demonstrated as a true mating event it would re-write the books but given that Amm mating aparies exist in europe where a lot of research is done in bee institutes now for many years and this has not been scientifically documented I still remain un-converted.

  10. #30
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    I am open to suggestions as to what this behaviour might be but this is a phenomenon which I observe several times every season at multiple apiaries and it follows the same sequence of events every time. If it is not a mating event what else could it be? Why would bees abscond and come back a couple of hours later? Makes no sense.
    About 5 of us witnessed the bees returning to an apidea yesterday including the chair and vice chair of the assocciation.

    When I check, the queen starts to lay 2-3 days after this event. That does not of course prove she mated during the event but it is a mighty big coincidence that it always happens 2-3 days before she starts to lay.

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