Does sperm mix in the spermatheca?

[oxnatbees]

A queen mates with several drones. Do the eggs get fertilised by a random drone's sperm, or is there a mechanism which means the children tend to come in "batches" of full sisters?

 

[B+.]

A queen mates with several drones. Do the eggs get fertilised by a random drone's sperm, or is there a mechanism which means the children tend to come in "batches" of full sisters?

I think this question has been covered before.
There is no mechanism for maintaining the sperm of an individual mate separately so it is mixed. How much it is mixed is uncertain (i.e. would two consecutive eggs always be fertilised by sperm from different drones?).
The question is largely academic because, in practical bee breeding, single drone insemination can be used to develop a trait or multiple daughters of the sire queen can be used to provide lots of similar drones.

 

[Finman]

.
When queen mates with several drones, only under 10% of semen is stored into queens spermatecha. They are mixed.

That is the way how honey bee takes advantage from hybrid vigour.

 

[oxnatbees]

Thank you, that is a very clear answer.

 

[Plenty of honey]

I don't know if this is true but I have heard that prior to mating with the next drone, some of the contents of the previous sire, is ejected. Has anyone else heard of this. I believe it hapends in small birds such as sparrows, during dominant male selection.
I suppose if a queen accepted the first full load of sperm, then their would be too much to allow her to satisfactorily mate with all the others?

 

[Finman]

I don't know if this is true but I have heard that prior to mating with the next drone, some of the contents of the previous sire, is ejected. Has anyone else heard of this. I believe it hapends in small birds such as sparrows, during dominant male selection.
I suppose if a queen accepted the first full load of sperm, then their would be too much to allow her to satisfactorily mate with all the others?

IT is well known nowadays, how the Queen mates. No need to suppose.

Traffic of individual virgins via entrance has been followed with video camera and they have measured the amount of sperma.

Mating takes 1-3 days, that the Queen gets enough sperma.

 

[B+.]

I have heard that prior to mating with the next drone, some of the contents of the previous sire, is ejected. Has anyone else heard of this.

Some of it is.
The next drone to mate with the queen has to remove the endophallus of the previous drone. There is atissue inside thequeens vagina called the valve-fold. This acts as a seal but some will leak out.
The lateral oviducts expand to accomodate the volume but, as the tissue relaxes, some will leak. More than enough is forced into the spermatheca by the pressure to last the queens entire life.

 

[Hivemaker.]

I don't know if this is true but I have heard that prior to mating with the next drone, some of the contents of the previous sire, is ejected. Has anyone else heard of this. I believe it hapends in small birds such as sparrows, during dominant male selection.
I suppose if a queen accepted the first full load of sperm, then their would be too much to allow her to satisfactorily mate with all the others?

After her return to the hive only a small portion of the spermatozoa migrate into the spermatheca by active and passive mechanisms over a period of about 40 h , while up to 95% of the received semen is expelled. Approximately 5 to 7 million spermatozoa are stored in the spermatheca for the rest of the queen’s life.

Does Patriline Composition Change over a Honey Bee Queen’s Lifetime?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553593/

 

[Beefriendly]

If this study is to be believed than honeybee queens are not reared at random but are reared from "royal" subfamilies, which have a low frequency in the patrilines but a high frequency in the queens reared. At least in an emergency response.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7610474_Rare_royal_families_in_honeybees_Apis_mellifera

 

[Fusion_power]

The short summary is that over a 3 month period very little variation occurs. After 2 years, measurable differences are found in the ratio of worker eggs produced.

They avoid calling it sperm clumping, but the effect suggests some sperm are more fit than others and survive long term storage better.

Does this mean there are short-lived drones and long-lived drones according to how long their sperm remains viable?

 

[keith pierce]

my bees are dark Irish natives and when ever they mate out to imports, i can see over the course of the year a big difference in the % of the yellow banding in that colony. anything for 10% to 30% and back to nearly pure looking again.