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Thread: Apiary Vicinity mating again

  1. #71
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    I haven't seen it for a few years but I've also seen what I assumed was avm, a small bunch of bees tumbling into gorse bush before dispersing and a mated queen a few days later. A lot of noise as I recall, possibly more than warranted for the small number of bees involved. This was at a time when all my mating nucs were five frame nucs rather than minies too.

  2. #72
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by busybeephilip View Post
    Saw exactly what?
    an event involving a queen and several hundred bees which has yet to be clarified exactly but which was definitely not simple absconding.
    Supersedure queen from a full colony which had made a single cell.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    an event involving a queen and several hundred bees which has yet to be clarified exactly but which was definitely not simple absconding.
    A swarm not fully established which returned to the hive

    The key words being "yet to be clarified" or perhaps folklore


    Still totally unconvinced with your various descriptions of AVM

  4. #74

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    Mating sign is not that commonly seen though
    Certainly not by me because after many years of beekeeping I saw it for the first time this year
    Probably because I was poking around in the hive when I shouldn't have been 😸

  5. #75
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jon View Post
    I am trying to be objective about what I see and I am not about to stumble into ley line territory any time soon.
    Not quite ley line territory but I recently read an interesting article by Allen Latham (well respected keeper in his day) about an experiment he'd carried out with 40 small mating nucs (with cells) to see if he could find a preference for comb orientation in relation to the points of the compass

    I myself have felt that there was a possibility that the bee with her peculiar senses,able to do all her work in what is darkness to us, might respond to the magnetic lines which run around the earth, and that she might build her combs either across these lines or with them..........

    .........A survey of the tables will show no preponderance in favour of any particular point of the compass.

    Gleanings in Bee Culture Feb 1937
    He did go on to say that he planned to repeat the survey using virgins so that the ceiling of the hives wouldn't have anything to direct the course of the comb. Not had time to track that down yet, if it was ever written up. If nothing else, it made me feel a lot better while driving the bees out of my frameless mating nucs over the last few weeks!

    edit: off topic but it's a good myth that's still believed today.
    Last edited by prakel; 18-08-2015 at 04:38 PM.

  6. #76
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    It's interesting to hear what Manley has to say about mating flights and swarms.

    How many people have ever seen a queen mate in a congregation area? Very few I'd warrant and it does not mean they don't exist. I imagine a few beekeepers have seen a drone comet. I have only seen this in videos. Pete L mentioned that he sees them over some of his apiaries.
    I have only seen a queen showing the mating sign twice out of all the queens I have seen returning to apideas.

  7. #77
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    The thing with the DCAs (in my limited experience of one!) is that you can clearly see the drone activity, not just the comet but the Catherine wheel type swirls too. So although the mating may not be clear to the naked eye there is a well researched body of evidence which tells us those drones are chasing queens rather than practicing for an aerobatic display. This is what I find fascinating with the AVM behaviour, the apparent lack of well defined drone activity. This suggests that both queens and drones have different behaviour patterns to the norm as it's understood at this time.

    Out of interest, have you ever tried to keep a lineage record of the queens involved to try and ascertain whether it happens within certain families more than others?

    It's interesting to hear what Manley has to say about mating flights and swarms.
    In the interest of maintaining an open mind. He also wrote:

    First there is the incidence of Herrod-Hempsall in his two volume book. In this case he not only saw the drone and virgin come together in flight, but spotted where they fell and succedded in killing them with cyanide and taking a photograph of them while in actual sexual connection. This must be almost unique though I dare say that if large commercialbreeders could spare the time to watch long enough, many similar instances would transpire. The other case was related to me in a letter two or three years ago in the following words "...........We saw the virgin pursued by a considerable number of drones, and the race continued swiftly in long zig-zags, a number of drones being 'tailed off' at each sharp turn at a height of about forty feet. These zigzags continued for a considerable time. the height being evenly maintained and the distance from us not appreciably increasing.Suddenly something fell, fairly slowly, from the crowd, and, my father keeping watch on the hive, I ran to the spot to search. Unfortunately I misjudged the distance and went too far, for after a vain search I saw the a queen rising apparently from the path in front of me. I at once looked for the drone and sure enough, found one on the grass verge, just as my father announced the return of the queen to the hive......

    R.O.B Manley 'Honey Farming' 1946

  8. #78
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by prakel View Post
    Out of interest, have you ever tried to keep a lineage record of the queens involved to try and ascertain whether it happens within certain families more than others?
    It happens with all the stock I have but I usually only take grafts from 2 or 3 queens in a season.
    The apideas are charged from any available colony at the start of the season.
    The behaviour seems to be worker driven but I guess that could be controlled by queen pheromone so it's a chicken and egg situation.

    I am refraining from making any claim that this is exclusively a black bee thing but it is interesting that another black bee guy MBC has seen similar stuff.

  9. #79
    Senior Member prakel's Avatar
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    Two current threads on beesource which may touch on AVM.

    http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...th-mated-Queen


    bobanloubee wrote: We searched the internet and couldn't find much info about our experience. We found discussions in the UK about so-called "Apiary Vicinity Mating" (AVM) which fits the behavior of our mini swarm to a T, but the theory of what's happening is controversial. Have others observed this behavior?
    http://www.beesource.com/forums/show...edure-Theories

    Verbify wrote: It was getting dark so we put it in a Nic. Next morning we looked and it mysteriously had no queen. Ended up combining it into one of our hives.
    Last edited by prakel; 24-08-2015 at 07:39 AM.

  10. #80
    Senior Member Jon's Avatar
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    Thanks for the links. That sounds very similar to what I have seen and appears to be a mating swarm with a supersedure queen - a carniolan strain in this case.
    As I mentioned above, I saw this once with a supersedure but the other cases involve virgins mating from nucs or apideas.

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