Genes

[REDWOOD]

I picked up a cast swarm this year, they are the funniest bees I had ever seen as the hive consists of two types of bees smaller black bees and larger orange/ black bees, the black bees do all the fanning, pinging and bringing in nectar and always see more of them in the supers, and the black/orange bees seems to do all the pollen collection.
My question is I always believed that this happens if the queen mates with more than 1 strain of drone but when I collected the swarm they also consisted of two strains of bees so who did this happen ?
PS the hive is thriving with now diseases or abnormalities with a big plump queen

 

[drstitson]

limited local gene pool.
parent colony had queen mated at same DCA as your cast virgin?
are you sure it was a cast? how long from swarm to first eggs?

 

[REDWOOD]

It Was defiantly a cast swarm, I missed the prime in the same garden a few weeks before, 3 frames of bees and the queen took 14 days to start laying and I marked her on the third week. I had to feed for three weeks for them to get going and then they exploded.

Thinking about it now there are also two different colour drones too

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

limited local gene pool.

Happens a lot in our neck of the woods

 

[drstitson]

"Thinking about it now there are also two different colour drones too"

yep - that'll be right.

what colour is mummy?

 

[REDWOOD]

Brown/tan

 

[RogueDrone]

Happens a lot in our neck of the woods

You want to come and see the Cardi's

 

[Mattl]

"Thinking about it now there are also two different colour drones too"

Excuse my ignorance but how does that even happen? Surely with genes just from the queen, they should be the same?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Excuse my ignorance but how does that even happen? Surely with genes just from the queen, they should be the same?

Visitors

 

[Swarm]

Visitors

See that all the time.

 

[drstitson]

"Surely with genes just from the queen, they should be the same?"

nope.

queen has TWO sets of chromosomes.
drones have ONE.

colour of queen depends on what colour genes she has inherited and the dominant/recessive nature of those genes.

for simplicity:
So assume dark is dominant - a dark queen may be dark/dark or dark/light genetically.
in the latter case drones will be 50% dark and 50% light. In the former, all dark.
a light queen would have to be light/light and only produce light drones.

 

[alanf]

Excuse my ignorance but how does that even happen? Surely with genes just from the queen, they should be the same?

Bee genetics are a whole topic in themselves.

The queen has two sets of genes (diploid), a pair of each gene. One from her queen mother and one from her drone father. When she lays a drone egg it has just one set of genes (haploid) but each of those genes could be from either of the queen's two sets. Each drone can be a genetically unique combination. With something controlled by a single pair of genes in the queen, when they are different like some body colours or a rare mutation like eye colour you expect drones to be about 50% of each.

 

[Erichalfbee]

And I seem to remember from the dim distant past that genes get mixed about during meiosis?

 

[REDWOOD]

Another biology lesson reading all about meiosis

 

[Mattl]

I knew that but I was assuming that a drone would basically be a carbon copy male version of the queen. I didn't consider the impact of dominant and recessive genes from a single parent.

Need to read more about bee genetics now

 

[For want of a better word]

AND.... the queen will have mated with a number of drones, each bringing a different set of genes or genetic variability into the mix of fertilised workers, who are all sisters or half sisters.( different gene sets from different drones.
However....
Each and every drone is unfertilised and should there~fore be genetically the same as the queen that laid it, but then dominant and recessive genes come into play resulting in some strange drone anomalies.... some with normal ( wild type) black eyes and then some with (mutant) green or bright yellow eyes.
To sort that one out you have to go back to the previous queen ,,... or queens mother.
Make the mammalian XX and XY sex system seem simple! ( until you have to tackle XXX and XXY.. that can od rarely does happen !)

But I have never got to the bottom of the red spotted drones I had earlier in the season !!!

 

[For want of a better word]

I knew that but I was assuming that a drone would basically be a carbon copy male version of the queen. I didn't consider the impact of dominant and recessive genes from a single parent.

Need to read more about bee genetics now

Simplifies it a bit if you forget all about "male bees"... social insects do not seem to bother with them too much
Think of drones as flying gametes... or testicles with wings if you like!

(Something the feminist movement latched onto!)

 

[Mattl]

That's pretty much how i described drones to my understanding wife. Flying sperm (in purpose anyway).