Advice on a single sealed QC discovery

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If they make queens from larvae they are rarely going to be as good as one they start from an egg
why? they can't feed royal jelly to an egg - it just sits there until it hatches then is when it needs tending by young nurse bees with the ability to feed it properly
No.
If that were so walk away splits and grafting queens wouldn’t work.
You get scrub queens when old bees make queen cells in desperation and don’t have resources to feed them properly
:iagree:
 
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Popped over today. LOTS of activity. It was hot but certainly a very congested entrance and lingering bees.

10-20 scout bees in and out of the bait hive about 20 yards away....
 
why? they can't feed royal jelly to an egg - it just sits there until it hatches then is when it needs tending by young nurse bees with the ability to feed it properly

:iagree:
This is interesting - I knew I had read somewhere that bees preferred to raise new queens from 3 day old eggs and that queens reared from eggs were generally bigger than ones raised from larvae.

https://theapiarist.org/the-bees-know-best/

He quotes two studies on the subject.

Hatch, S., Tarpy, D. & Fletcher, D. Worker regulation of emergency queen rearing in honey bee colonies and the resultant variation in queen quality. Insectes soc. 46, 372–377 (1999).

Tarpy, D.R., Simone-Finstrom, M. & Linksvayer, T.A. Honey bee colonies regulate queen reproductive traits by controlling which queens survive to adulthood.
Insect. Soc. 63, 169–174 (2016

The conclusions were that, although the queens were bigger when they came from three day old eggs there was little difference in their internal ability to produce eggs. However, there was suggestion that the larger queens were preferred by the colony as larger queens have better chances of fighting to become the sole surviving queen and that larger queens have more chances when it comes to mating - in terms of their ability to secure the best drones as they will be faster and higher flyers and presumably this will have an impact on their fecundity and longevity (although this does not appear to have been comprehensively established).

Also of interest was that the bees tore down a larger percentage of queen cells built around 2 day old eggs and those built on larvae - the biggest percentage being torn down being those queen cells built on three day old larvae.

I'm a great believer (As are you) that working with the bees is far more productive in beekeeping terms than forcing them down a route that makes life more difficult for them.

So, technically, you are correct but ... from a beekeepers viewpoint, when you are trying to raise good queens, by introducing material to a colony from which you intend them to create queens, then the 'best' queens are going to be reared from eggs that are three days old. Hence - when introducing a frame or section of 'eggs and larvae' to a colony it would appear important that the frame does contain eggs, rather than just larvae ? Indeed, a mix of larvae and 1, 2 & 3 day eggs would appear to be ideal.

It's a fifteen minute read - there's a few other things in there as well - but well worth the effort. It doesn't actually classify queens raised from larvae as 'scrub queens' but if these are smaller (and clearly not as desirable to the bees) then my take on it would be that these larval based queens are what I would consider 'scrub queens'.
 
It's a fifteen minute read - there's a few other things in there as well - but well worth the effort. It doesn't actually classify queens raised from larvae as 'scrub queens' but if these are smaller (and clearly not as desirable to the bees) then my take on it would be that these larval based queens are what I would consider 'scrub queens'.
Then what are we buying from commercial queen producers? Scrub queens?
 
I believe colonies will not accept egg transfer. (I have tried - and failed) I would think the article above is referring to three day old eggs on the boundary of becoming a larva - which is accepted.
 
Then what are we buying from commercial queen producers? Scrub queens?

I'm not sure that there's a single clear definition of what a "scrub queen" is that everyone shares. Even if you said "a queen raised due to the emergency requeening response", would that be one grafted into a Nicot cup, say, or raised from an egg laid in relatively fresh worker comb, or horrible old black comb, or something different again? It's likely that on average each gives a different outcome, some of which may be indistinguishable from a "normally" raised queen.

James
 
To me a scrub queen is one produced under EQC conditions where a sub optimal larvae is selected and fed RJ later in the process.
 
Then what are we buying from commercial queen producers? Scrub queens?
I don't know .. I don't know enough about how queens are produced by commercial queen producers ... but the studies are clear about what the bees prefer - presumably if they are are artificially inseminated then it negates the bees desire to see bigger queens that are able to mate with better drones. I buy queens as well as rearing my own open mated ones - and I've had some very good queens as a result.

My comments were more aimed at those people who are rearing their own to make certain that there are eggs available when they are seeking to engineer the genetics of a colony by adding a frame of eggs from a queen from one of their own preferred colonies.
 
I don't know .. I don't know enough about how queens are produced by commercial queen producers ... but the studies are clear about what the bees prefer - presumably if they are are artificially inseminated then it negates the bees desire to see bigger queens that are able to mate with better drones.
Most are grafted and open mated.
 
Exactly. It should mean a sub optimal poor performing queen raised under suboptimal conditions. Size immaterial
So ... according to the studies and if they are valid ... the bees prefer their queens to be raised from eggs that are three days old - so anything before that or after that may well be considered (by the bees) as sub-optimal ? What you call these queens is irrelevant ...

It is of course, always open to conjecture as the studies are based on observations that are then converted to 'likelihood percentages'. I'm not looking for an argument here - just interested in what the Apiarist had to say and the studies that his comments were based on.
 
Most are grafted and open mated.
From what I've read the 'optimal' subject for grafting is a day old larvae ...so it's a matter of hours that you have to find the ideal candidate ... presumably, those who graft from older larvae may not be getting ideal queens for open mating ?

I would not suggest that reputable breeders are grafting from older larvae ... but who knows what those on the periphery of queen rearing do ? Indeed, could this - or queen rearing by amateurs who may not be aware of the desirability of eggs being the basis for bee's preferred queens - be partly to blame for some premature queen failures that are frequently reported ?
 
To me a scrub queen is one produced under EQC conditions where a sub optimal larvae is selected and fed RJ later in the process.
Perhaps so ... according to the studies ... on average, the bees consider anything other than 3 day old eggs as sub-optimal. Who are we to argue with the bees ? It's fascinating ...
 
Patrilines
Yes ... so the bees are attempting to select the best candidates in selecting three day old eggs - which, as has been pointed out, within a few hours are going to be larvae and fed on Royal Jelly.

What does not make sense is why the bees prefer to select eggs for queen production if it makes no difference if they selected just any old larvae. They must know something we don't know that the bees know ?
 
Some very interesting discussions here!

I'm debating going in at the 5 day mark, probably tomorrow late afternoon. Then if I find the queen, doing a split. One with her, one with an isolated queen cell assuming they are present.

If there are no queen cells or queen I can add a mated queen. But probably not until next Thursday. I'd be interested in people's thoughts as to the likelihood of success for a mated queen added at that point?
 

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