Up to 70% less than 10 days old leave with swarm

beeno · Jan 8, 2020

Hi Folks,
Thought I make a new thread about this controversial, but important part of our understand of beekeeping. The statement below is generally accepted in the literature and makes perfect sense to me, but not accepted by a lot of beekeepers. I seem to recall Seeley had checked it out, but don't have time to search just now.
The Biology of the Honey Bee - Mark Winston (1987) p 186
“Younger workers have a higher probability of issuing with swarms than older workers, and up to 70% of workers less than 10 days old leave with swarms of temperate-evolved bee races… The advantage of a higher proportion of young workers issuing with swarms is that it provides more bees with greater potential longevity for the swarm, a factor of critical importance since new workers will not begin emerging until at least 21 days after the swarm has colonised a new nest site. In contrast, the original colony contains emerging brood which provides an influx of young workers for the old nest.”

Erichalfbee · Jan 8, 2020

beeno said:
Hi Folks,
Thought I make a new thread about this controversial, but important part of our understand of beekeeping. The statement below is generally accepted in the literature and makes perfect sense to me, but not accepted by a lot of beekeepers. I seem to recall Seeley had checked it out, but don't have time to search just now.
The Biology of the Honey Bee - Mark Winston (1987) p 186
“Younger workers have a higher probability of issuing with swarms than older workers, and up to 70% of workers less than 10 days old leave with swarms of temperate-evolved bee races… The advantage of a higher proportion of young workers issuing with swarms is that it provides more bees with greater potential longevity for the swarm, a factor of critical importance since new workers will not begin emerging until at least 21 days after the swarm has colonised a new nest site. In contrast, the original colony contains emerging brood which provides an influx of young workers for the old nest.”

We talked about this in another thread
I don’t dispute that but what you said there was that 70% of a swarm was young bees. Seeley says that up to 75% of the workforce leaves the parent hive to make up the swarm.
7O% of the bees in a swarm being young bees is not the same as 70% of the young bees leaving the hive.

Ian123 · Jan 8, 2020

Controversial!!!! I personally try to prevent swarms as much as possible when 1 gets away I am not overly bothered about it’s composition.....

jenkinsbrynmair · Jan 8, 2020

controversial - more like talking absolute rubbish as per usual.
You really need to review your meds.
Winston's 'findings' were disproved years ago.
No amount of you banging on will make fantasy a fact.

Repwoc · Jan 8, 2020

Erichalfbee said:
We talked about this in another thread
I don’t dispute that but what you said there was that 70% of a swarm was young bees. Seeley says that up to 75% of the workforce leaves the parent hive to make up the swarm.
7O% of the bees in a swarm being young bees is not the same as 70% of the young bees leaving the hive.

Which works out at ~23% of bees in a swarm being <= 10 days old if we assume that a bee lives for 40 days on average.

jenkinsbrynmair · Jan 8, 2020

beeno said:
I seem to recall Seeley had checked it out, but don't have time to search just now.

But because you know you won't find what you hoped to.
Up to 70% leaving with the swarm is not the same as 70% of the swarm being under 10 days old. Seeley and others have since stated that the swarm is made up of a mix of all ages.

user 6228 · Jan 8, 2020

jenkinsbrynmair said:
controversial - more like talking absolute rubbish as per usual.
You really need to review your meds.
Winston's 'findings' were disproved years ago.
No amount of you banging on will make fantasy a fact.

Do have reference for that?... Seriously it would be interesting to read. But I guess it has likely has dissipated in to the bin of something you remembered the gist but not the where.

Beefriendly · Jan 8, 2020

The identity of nest-site scouts in honey bee swarms
David C. Gilley
Apidologie, Springer Verlag,
1998, 29 (3), pp.229-240. ffhal-00891490f

Basically he records that "Bees of all ages accompanied the swarms, but there were many more young bees and many fewer old bees in the swarm than one would expect based on the age distribution of the bees in the parental colony.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891490/document

This is 22 year old work and is with Italian bees. Perhaps Jenks might have some more recent references that show this paper to be wrong.

Repwoc · Jan 8, 2020

Beefriendly said:
Basically he records that "Bees of all ages accompanied the swarms, but there were many more young bees and many fewer old bees in the swarm than one would expect based on the age distribution of the bees in the parental colony.

It sort of makes sense, given that a large fraction of the older bees will be out foraging in the conditions when bees like to swarm so the age distribution in the hive will be skewed in favour of younger bees.

masterBK · Jan 8, 2020

If you have witnessed a swarm leaving a hive and clustering on a nearby branch etc you may have also witnessed quite a few bees actually coming back to the hive from the settled swarm. These are, I suggest, older bees fully orientated to the hive position and surrounding area.

Stiffy · Jan 8, 2020

Ian123 said:
Controversial!!!! I personally try to prevent swarms as much as possible when 1 gets away I am not overly bothered about it’s composition.....

Just a bloody nuisance and consider it as my failure
S

jenkinsbrynmair · Jan 8, 2020

Beefriendly said:
The identity of nest-site scouts in honey bee swarms
David C. Gilley
Apidologie, Springer Verlag,
1998, 29 (3), pp.229-240. ffhal-00891490f

Basically he records that "Bees of all ages accompanied the swarms, but there were many more young bees and many fewer old bees in the swarm than one would expect based on the age distribution of the bees in the parental colony.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891490/document

This is 22 year old work and is with Italian bees. Perhaps Jenks might have some more recent references that show this paper to be wrong.

The paper was discussing ages of scout bees not the age of the majority of the swarm. I may have missed something but can someone point me to where it says that over 70% of the swarm are under 10 days old? which is what the OP seems to have grabbed out of thin air?

Beefriendly · Jan 8, 2020

jenkinsbrynmair said:
The paper was discussing ages of scout bees not the age of the majority of the swarm. I may have missed something but can someone point me to where it says that over 70% of the swarm are under 10 days old? which is what the OP seems to have grabbed out of thin air?

No they looked at all ages of bees within the swarm, although their main focus of interest was the scout bees.
Read the damn thing.
They state...
"Bees of all ages accompanied the swarms, but there were many more young bees and many fewer old bees in the swarm than one would expect based on the age distribution of the bees in the parental colony."

jenkinsbrynmair said:
controversial - more like talking absolute rubbish as per usual.
You really need to review your meds.
Winston's 'findings' were disproved years ago.
No amount of you banging on will make fantasy a fact.

I can't find anything that suggests other than the majority (of most swarms) are composed of young bees as per Winston. No idea where the under 10 days comes from....
But If you can show us where Winston,s reports where disproved, as you claim above, I'm happy to be educated.

jenkinsbrynmair · Jan 8, 2020

Beefriendly said:
No they looked at all ages of bees within the swarm, although their main focus of interest was the scout bees.
Read the damn thing.

I did, but in your eagerness to attack me as is your wont, we still haven't come to the point of this thread which is a claim by one person that 70% of all bees in the swarm are under 10 days old. Nowhere in Winston's findings does it say it and everything I've seen indicates that they are of all ages (albeit admittedly, a lot are young bees) but not exclusively under 10 days old
Beeno claims that Winston states over 70% of bees in a swarm are under 10 days old, if that is the case, there are plenty of other authors out there who will say different which disproves the claim.
If he didn't say it, then the OP's claim is a fiction.
In fact I seem to recall that a while ago the OP claimed that bees under 10 days old couldn't fly.

steve1958 · Jan 8, 2020

A swarm needs plenty of young bees to produce wax for the new 'nest'

Millet · Jan 8, 2020

What does it matter on the percentage of bee ages in a Swarm..if you can control 95% of your colonies from swarming you do not have to worry about pointless statistics..mind you i read recently that bees will pull the wings of a worker and stick them on a clipped Queen with propalis and then swarm with two princesses to accompany the Queen.. :spy:

Beefriendly · Jan 8, 2020

jenkinsbrynmair said:
I did, but in your eagerness to attack me .

Paranoid? I gave up bothering trying to correct your lack of knowledge many moons ago!
I was trying to add some facts to the debate, I never mentioned anything about bees under 10 days old. But I will now having re-read Winston

What Winston observed and published was that up to 70% of the current bees under 10 days old within the hive leave with the swarm. Not that 70% of the swarm is composed of bees under 10 days.
A subtle but important differentiation.

Easy to see how the OP made his mistake.

Ian123 · Jan 8, 2020

Someone shoot me now pls...................

tonyofarr · Jan 8, 2020

Oh Millet, you are naughty!!!!!!

beeno · Jan 12, 2020

Erichalfbee said:
We talked about this in another thread
I don’t dispute that but what you said there was that 70% of a swarm was young bees. Seeley says that up to 75% of the workforce leaves the parent hive to make up the swarm.
7O% of the bees in a swarm being young bees is not the same as 70% of the young bees leaving the hive.

Guilty of leaving out "up to" and you have just left out "less than". Not the same Seeley quote that I was referring to.

Up to 70% less than 10 days old leave with swarm

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