Hand fertilisation of bee eggs.

[Hivemaker.]

HM BUT insemination and fertilisation are two completely different processes.

Silly me,i think i already knew this.

 

[drstitson]

So the simple challenge for 2012:

cage a proven cordovan queen II'd from cordovan drones on drone comb in a mininuc

allow to lay in a batch of cells then quickly apply wild type (dark) drone semen to the eggs. repeat several times.

wait 10 days and see whether worker or drone brood. if worker - wait until 3 weeks is finally up and see if you get any wild-type dark workers.

 

[drstitson]

"Silly me,i think i already knew this."

pete - not meant as a personal comment - just to the lurking hordes!!!!

and obviously most lay people closely associate/confuse the two processes (both with each other and the post event ***!!!!)

 

[Hivemaker.]

wait 10 days and see whether worker or drone brood. if worker - wait until 3 weeks is finally up and see if you get any wild-type dark workers.

I think the idea is to graft the larvae into queen cells,as soon as possible.

 

[drstitson]

No - my idea was simply to prove whether it was possible to hand fertilise eggs with any sort of efficiency WITHOUT the added complication of grafting and the subsequent multiple uncontrollable influences on graft acceptance.

once you show you have a method that works reliably (or at least often enough to make it worthwhile) THEN move on to grafting and attempting to get queens.

 

[Hivemaker.]

And will they produce workers from drone cells,or just remove the larvae as being faulty.

 

[RoofTops]

dr's suggestion would also show whether hand fertilisation had been succesful or whether the queen herself had "accidently" fertilised the egg herself before laying it. The low success rate for this method might just be explained by the latter - so it needs to be eliminated.

 

[drstitson]

"And will they produce workers from drone cells,or just remove the larvae as being faulty"

yes - that is the main caveat as far as i see it. anyone know anything about whether worker brood in drone cells is acceptable to the girls or not. if you only give bees drawn drone comb, nothing else, do you get 100% drone brood laid (before workers have a chance to remodel the comb)???

edit: found this quote on the subject online:

"close to verbatim quote from harry laidlaw's book... Newly mated queens are loathe to lay drones.
or something like that...anyways a brand new queen will lay fertilized worker eggs into drone comb. They have a really cool picture of it in the book."

 

[Hivemaker.]

dr's suggestion would also show whether hand fertilisation had been succesful or whether the queen herself had "accidently" fertilised the egg herself before laying it. The low success rate for this method might just be explained by the latter - so it needs to be eliminated.

I would eliminate this problem by treating a virgin queen with a few doses of CO2 and induce her to lay,infertile eggs of course.

 

[drstitson]

even better HM (had crossed my mind too).

anyone got a pure cordovan queen knocking around???

i'll dig out the soda stream if i can get hold of some eggs or queen cells this season.

 

[Hivemaker.]

even better HM (had crossed my mind too).

You can then use normal worker size comb,much better than expecting workers to emerge from drone cells.

 

[Scutellator]

"And will they produce workers from drone cells,or just remove the larvae as being faulty"

yes - that is the main caveat as far as i see it. anyone know anything about whether worker brood in drone cells is acceptable to the girls or not. if you only give bees drawn drone comb, nothing else, do you get 100% drone brood laid (before workers have a chance to remodel the comb)???

edit: found this quote on the subject online:

"close to verbatim quote from harry laidlaw's book... Newly mated queens are loathe to lay drones.
or something like that...anyways a brand new queen will lay fertilized worker eggs into drone comb. They have a really cool picture of it in the book."

Not only the new queens. This queen was 2 years old. The last season several others made the same mess.