Genetics

[Macstu]

I am getting confused people say that when bees get aggresive it due to the genes of the queen and her offspring , also it is said it is due to an ageing queen whos pheromone levels are depliating.

Having done plant breeding that involves genetics I can understand the pheromone levels causing this but cannot see how her genetics would change since the year before when the bees were calm also if the genetics are in the brood (as they would be) why would they calm down with a new introduced queen if they had bad genes, To me this points towards pheromnes and not genes.

Can anyone explian better please

 

[Finman]

.
Defensive is natural behaviour of bee that it can survive in nature.
Calm or Nondefensive is gene error made by human selection.

There are times when same hive may be more or less angry. Try near sunset or before rain how it works.

I cannot imagine why age of queen affects on defencive behaviour. It does not make sense. At least it does not help you in beekeeping. Bees just protect their hive against beekeeper, robbing bees, wasps, mice...etc

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Having done plant breeding that involves genetics I can understand the pheromone levels causing this but cannot see how her genetics would change since the year before when the bees were calm

The queen mates with more than one drone who may be from different colonies therefore have different genetic traits. It could be that the sperm in the first year is from a gentler stock than what she is using to fertilise eggs in the second year (maybe a result of a combination of her and the drone's genes.)

also if the genetics are in the brood (as they would be) why would they calm down with a new introduced queen if they had bad genes

If you requeen, then any new brood will have her genetic traits (and that of the drones she mated with) within four or five weeks (depending how busy they are foraging and brood rearing) all the progeny of the previous agressive queen will have died therefore all bees in that colony will have the traits of the (hopefully) less agressive queen.
Obviously as Finny says, other factors like weather, amount of stores they have collected etc may have a temporary effect on their agressiveness.

 

[Macstu]

The queen mates with more than one drone who may be from different colonies therefore have different genetic traits. It could be that the sperm in the first year is from a gentler stock than what she is using to fertilise eggs in the second year (maybe a result of a combination of her and the drone's genes.)



If you requeen, then any new brood will have her genetic traits (and that of the drones she mated with) within four or five weeks (depending how busy they are foraging and brood rearing) all the progeny of the previous agressive queen will have died therefore all bees in that colony will have the traits of the (hopefully) less agressive queen.
Obviously as Finny says, other factors like weather, amount of stores they have collected etc may have a temporary effect on their agressiveness.

Thank you now I can understand

 

[Little John]

Genes - certainly in humans - are well-known as often causing 'a tendency towards something', rather than creating some kind of absolute visible change as seen in classic plant breeding experiments.
So it's quite possible that a colony(1) could have 'a tendency towards aggression' if the queen's pheromones should drop to an unacceptable (to them) level.

I'm not saying that this is the case, just that it's one plausible explanation.

(1) Although the colony will consist of genes from many drones, all it takes is one aggressive drone to have sired a small percentage of bees to have such an undesirable characteristic - and this will cause the whole colony to then be labelled as 'aggressive'.

 

[oliver90owner]

Are you 100% certain it is the same queen as present last season? That is a good starting point.

 

[sipa]

Don't forget that any drones your queen produces has the genetic material from her father (his grandfather) not as a result of her mating.

Drones come from an unfertilised egg.