The Biology of Mating by Juliana Rangel (NHS lecture).

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
that's interesting but what is the mechanism by which queens can "choose " their mates
Thats where information seems scarce
Now if its just random luck or avoidance of something that looks wrong in colour fair enough
Can a queen smell a mate while in flight surrounded by a load of suitors
Queens are able to fly but drones seem to get lots more practice
My money is on the drone outflying a reluctant queen
So if there is some mechanism it is not an obvious one

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[gavin]

Hi Jon
that's interesting but what is the mechanism by which queens can "choose " their mates
Thats where information seems scarce

Bees make very rapid decisions whether or not to challenge a robber so I think mid-air choice is feasible for queens. There is also the valve fold which gives her choice at the actual moment. There has been talk (loose talk?) of different types flying at different heights.

Your experienced and committed keepers of imported stocks note that - despite force of numbers in some situations - stocks partially revert to something Amm-like. Why is that - advantage of native-type drones flying better, longer in iffy conditions? Something genetic and subtle such as genetic drive? Better survival of your more native-like hybrids due to local disease pressure? Or is this reversion also not well recorded and doubtful? That Polish work Jon cited shows that there are thigs going on that we don't understand (yet).

[The Drone Ranger]

Your experienced and committed keepers of imported stocks note that - despite force of numbers in some situations - stocks partially revert to something Amm-like. Why is that - advantage of native-type drones flying better, longer in iffy conditions? Something genetic and subtle such as genetic drive? Better survival of your more native-like hybrids due to local disease pressure? Or is this reversion also not well recorded and doubtful? That Polish work Jon cited shows that there are thigs going on that we don't understand (yet).

Hi Gavin
you may be right it would seem there is an inbuilt factor in honeybee mating that favours hybridisation so its probably expected that imported Carnica or whatever will be heavily hybridised in the next generation
Likewise for Amm type queens etc

The study Jon linked to was very interesting this is my impression of it

There were only two strains or lines of bees
3 of each queen mothers Amm AmC
24 daughter queens of each in the mating study
3 Amm queens disappeared on the mating flights
The remaining 45 queens were put in nucleus hives of AmC only workers
The testing of all the local bee populations was 1 worker from each hive in 3 main apiaries


I didn't understand the statistical analyses of the results
The result they say was that in this case there was more hybridisation in the introduced Carnica queens than the introduced Amm queens

but they also say in the study
"most beekeepers declare that they keep AMC, while our preliminary studies show that most colonies belong to the native AMM "

Not sure if thats just the one bee tested from each hive or some other study, but they then have to adjust the results to compensate for this effect ?

I

[Mellifera Crofter]

Hi Jon
that's interesting but what is the mechanism by which queens can "choose " their mates
...

Bees make very rapid decisions whether or not to challenge a robber so I think mid-air choice is feasible for queens. There is also the valve fold which gives her choice at the actual moment. There has been talk (loose talk?) of different types flying at different heights.
...

I haven't yet watched or read any of the links, but I've read your posts, so apologies for maybe misunderstanding what you're talking about - but regards to choice on mating flights, Jürgen Tautz, in his book, The Buzz about Bees (a book I enjoyed reading and is easy to understand) thinks that the workers that accompany the virgin queen might perhaps play an active role in chasing away undesirable drones during the mating flight. (p.131 - The Buzz about Bees). He describes how drones are chased away from a virgin queen placed outside the hive. He says,

The aim of the worker bees is not clear, nor is it known whether this behaviour is an exception, or the rule. Nevertheless, it would appear that workers closely associated with the queen allow some drones access to her, and others not.

Kitta