Drones in February

[midnight sun]

The procedure is called selfing, a virgin queen is induced to lay eggs, these of course will only produce drones, when these drones are old enough, the queen is inseminated with the semen collected from the drones she has produced.

Not worked out the genetics of this (as my headache is bad enough at the moment) but does this 'selfing' cause any genetic abnormalities as it would in say, humans?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

nothing wrong with a bit of selfing - whiles away those long lonely nights; it's when you start doing it to others - especially family members that the problems start

 

[itma]

I was under the impression a queen mating with her own drones would not work, as the drones are a genetic copy of herself. Would this not just mean she is in a sense, mating with herself?

Also, would this mean any queens raised from this one, would be an exact clone of the original?

Q mating with own drones is going to produce a high(er) output of diploid drones, almost all of which will be terminated early on by the workers (who can detect this condition). What you'd see would be lots of empty cells in the brood pattern.

Clones? No, but such deliberate inbreeding is (I understand) used to emphasise particular genetic traits.



That's my general understanding before launching into proper study of this area - so if I'm way off course, I'd appreciate a gentle steer in the right direction!

 

[midnight sun]

nothing wrong with a bit of selfing - whiles away those long lonely nights; it's when you start doing it to others - especially family members that the problems start

Hmm......is this an advert for tourism in your neck of the woods.?
My diet is enough for me at the moment.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Hmm......is this an advert for tourism in your neck of the woods.?
My diet is enough for me at the moment.

It's why you find that public schoolboys excel at boxing - they have to wear the gloves every night so it's like a second skin (we won't mention the fourth!)

 

[jd101k2000]

Well, you live and learn. My understanding was that by the time a queen was laying eggs (and her ovaries were mature) that the time for refilling the spermatheca (with sperm from her own/any other drones) had passed. I guess from what has gone before that II can overcome this.

In this case OQ has two sets of chromosomes A & B
Her drone gets one set - either A or B
The children with two sets of chromosomes would be AA, AB, BA or BB. I may be oversimplifying this and getting the wrong answer, but I would think that AA and BB would both be diploid drones. AB and BA would have identical DNA to mother, so be female 'clones'.

If this is wrong, I would appreciate a better calculation of the outcome. (I'm interested in learning.)

 

[midnight sun]

It's why you find that public schoolboys excel at boxing - they have to wear the gloves every night so it's like a second skin (we won't mention the fourth!)

 

[mintmoth]

​

My great uncle Dewi used to recycle semen - he had a Raleigh dealership outside the dock gates in Swansea

 

[busybee53]

This thread is getting very technical with the genetics and all.

For a more simple answer I would say that I have been told by one of the leading lights of my association that some drones do live over winter.

Here the winter so far has been both short and warm so perhaps a few drones have survived being thrown out of the hive by the workers, especially with the amount of stores they were able to collect in the long summer last year.

 

[MuswellMetro]

Well, you live and learn. My understanding was that by the time a queen was laying eggs (and her ovaries were mature) that the time for refilling the spermatheca (with sperm from her own/any other drones) had passed. I guess from what has gone before that II can overcome this.

In this case OQ has two sets of chromosomes A & B
Her drone gets one set - either A or B
The children with two sets of chromosomes would be AA, AB, BA or BB. I may be oversimplifying this and getting the wrong answer, but I would think that AA and BB would both be diploid drones. AB and BA would have identical DNA to mother, so be female 'clones'.

If this is wrong, I would appreciate a better calculation of the outcome. (I'm interested in learning.)

almost but not quite. gender in Bees is determined by Alles at the locus on the chromosne

if a bee has only one alles or two similar alles it is male, if it has two diffrent alles it is female

s a queen (32 Chromosomes) has AB alles and to prodsuce an egg(16 Chromosomes) the chromosomes mix then split, into eggs, one egg(16) has A alles, the next egg (16) has B alles,

if unfertilised the egg will hatched in a male drone (16 chromosomes), if fertilised then the egg the egg is female (32) so long as the spermatazo has a diiferentr Alles (thought to be about 24+ alles in Uk)

if the egg is fertiled with spermatazoa with the same alles then it is a diplod male (32 chromosomes),

so if a virgin quuen mates with only her own drones 50% of her fertiled eggs will be Dipoid females and 50% diploid Drones and killed

well thats what i remember but could be a bit out as my memeory goes OTT sometimes

 

[thebeeman]

I only advise selfing as a short term solution. It gets you over the period when there are no other queens available to keep the hive viable and not a total loss.
But when there is no other option i have found this works very well and on a nice warm March day i have managed to do this in under 10 minutes as finding mature drone has not been a problem and 95% have been winners.
not sure about the quality of the seamen never have been able to find any research on that. But as this is only a short term solution it really dose not matter

 

[snelgrove]

This thread is getting very technical with the genetics and all.

For a more simple answer I would say that I have been told by one of the leading lights of my association that some drones do live over winter.

Here the winter so far has been both short and warm so perhaps a few drones have survived being thrown out of the hive by the workers, especially with the amount of stores they were able to collect in the long summer last year.

My thought's when I started the thread, good to see such good debate though