Module 6

[Polyanwood]

It seems that laying workers can occur when there is also a failing ( not laying well) or drone laying queen present. What is the mechanism for this? Is it that there is less 9-ODA available in the colony? Is there a positive correlation between low sperm levels in spermatheca and low 9-ODA?

Thanks for any leads.

 

[masterBK]

Brood pheromone from both unsealed and sealed worker brood is very important (more important than Q pheromones) in inhibiting ovary development and the laying behaviour of workers. Even when there is a fertile actively laying queen present in a colony there will always be some workers (up to 1%) with developed ovaries and a few of these will lay eggs but these will usually be eaten by workers (Worker policing). Sometimes if they are well away from the brood nest (eg in top supers) some of these eggs manage to avoid being eaten and develop into drone larvae.

 

[Polyanwood]

Thx. Explains putting in frames of open brood when you demaree too.

 

[MuswellMetro]

ratneik work at sheffield and sussex covers some of it

 

[Polyanwood]

Thanks MM.

What did people make of the Tautz 2008 finding that contrary to popular belief, most of the bees doing orientation flights on sunny days are OLDER not young bees? What is this all about?


One hypothesis might be that they are there ready to act as bodyguards if a virgin needs them on a mating flight? Or/and that they are some kind of genetic police force, that prevents mature drones from the same colony coming back in, so that if there were a mating flight, it would only be drones from other colonies that accompanied the queen??

 

[MuswellMetro]

Thanks MM.

What did people make of the Tautz 2008 finding that contrary to popular belief, most of the bees doing orientation flights on sunny days are OLDER not young bees? What is this all about?


One hypothesis might be that they are there ready to act as bodyguards if a virgin needs them on a mating flight? Or/and that they are some kind of genetic police force, that prevents mature drones from the same colony coming back in, so that if there were a mating flight, it would only be drones from other colonies that accompanied the queen??

not picked that up, do you have a title?/abstract

 

[Polyanwood]

Page 125 'The Buzz about Bees' Jurgen Tautz pub 2008. It's a book and I couldn't see exactly who had found this. Perhaps him. He seems to be an eminent bee researcher.

 

[Polyanwood]

I've got stuck again. More advice please.

So in looking at what conditions lead to supersedure, notes say;
1. low queen lay rate (low brood pheromone)
2. low queen substance rate (low queen pheromone)
3. presence of nosema (Yates)...but that might be a reason for 1. above I guess
4. high drone population.

it is this last one that does not quite make sense unless drones 'give off' a pheromone that promotes the building of queen cells?

Seeley (2002) found no link between presence or absence of drones in colony and swarming - but this is supersedure not swarming.

Anecdotally: I have tended to see more drones in colonies where I think there is, or soon will be, a virgin queen. I've also seen that colonies that have tended to supersede are on average smaller than those that don't (and this has made me think that perhaps the queens were nosemic).

So what do you think about 4. above. is it true in your experience? is there research that confirms it to be true?

 

[masterBK]

1) A major factor leading to supersedure seems to be a reduction in queen pheromones. Old queens are more likely to be superseded particularly if the colony never gets strong enough to swarm. Often queens in prime swarms superseded later in the aummer
2) failing drone layers
3) Supersedure more likely in poor honey years
4) Supersedure more likely if the queen is injured eg front leg missing
5) Introduced ,travelled, artificially inseminated queens and queens of a different races/strains maybe superseded soon after introduction
6) Queens infected with Nosema often superseded
7) Volume of space in the hive
Morales G 1986 studied “the effects of cavity size on demography of unmanaged colonies of honeybees” & found that supersedure occurred in 50% of colonies in hives with 84 L of space but only 5% of colonies in hives providing 21L and 42L space

 

[Polyanwood]

That's a good list thx.

Re: 5) I read something about different races of bees having different 'smell palates' so that some combinations of races did not even recognise the new queen was a queen, which would explain the problem of introducing bees of a very different race to a queen. Regarding Morales, it made me think about people saying carnies are 'swarmy'. Would they still be swarmy if they were kept in the right kind of box for that type of N.European continental bee i.e. double langstroth circa 40 litres.

What has queen footprint pheromone (QFP) got to do with supersedure?

Lenskya (1981) painted QFP on the bottom of combs and successfully stopped the bees swarming.

 

[Polyanwood]

No more revision

Good luck everyone.

Soon we will all relax.

 

[MuswellMetro]

No more revision

Good luck everyone.

Soon we will all relax.

same, i am on the 11:30 session so stopped just now...having a nice G&T

hope we all pass

 

[Black Comb]

Well, it wasn't that bad was it?

 

[Polyanwood]

I thought it was OK. It favoured beekeepers who had read more recent stuff than the reading list. I ran out of time and so did answer part of one question at all...so i won't be getting top marks, but it is done.

I couldn't remember the answer to the 1 mark question at the beginning which was something like,
'what is the ratio of eggs, to brood to bees in a colony in mid Summer?'

What's the answer then?

Thanks all of you for you help.

 

[Black Comb]

1:2:4
I was short of time, as ever.
Not really any time to think in these exams, just a rush to get it all down, and then you make mistakes.
I hope the examiner can read my writing.

 

[blackcavebees]

1:2:4
I was short of time, as ever.
Not really any time to think in these exams, just a rush to get it all down, and then you make mistakes.
I hope the examiner can read my writing.

Me too, bad idea doing two at same sitting, by end i can't read my own writing

 

[alanf]

Me too, bad idea doing two at same sitting, by end i can't read my own writing

Not so easy at the beginning. Now if I had twice as long to copy it all out neatly...

 

[MuswellMetro]

Not so easy at the beginning. Now if I had twice as long to copy it all out neatly...

nice to see you, sorry i was not that talkative at the 11:30 change over...exam nerves, suprise to see so many taking exam modules, assume it was mainly mod 1 , I hoped to do well taking just module 2 having taken mod 6 in november }...but now looking back made a few total blunders in the mod 2... in the one pointers put the range of honey sugars instead of the range of sugars in nectar and in the pollen Q said x1000 to view pollen instead of x400 , i am sure that question on how can a beekeeper find out what pollen is in his honey was a module 8 Q rather than module 2...though it was possible asked becasue Yates doesn't cover it well

 

[masterBK]

Viewing a slide of pollen centrifuged out of honey under *1000 magnification is fine and would enable you to see more detail of the pollen grain but would take longer as you would need to set up with an oil immersion lens.