My plucky little Lady Jane Grey

[TryingToLetThemBee]

My honey is delicious (lime, at the moment), but it is the fascination with the adaptability of the honeybee that really drives me. Forgive the thread, but I have to share this story; I can see it may be common, but it is new to me.

On 18 June I took a Q- nuc from Buckybeast to make increase and work on my stocks. I went down to one EQC after a week but otherwise today was first inspection.

Extreme disappointment; no Q (might just not have seen her, though, so no big deal). No brood, though. But her empty cell was still there. But wait a minute; what are these other two EQCs? So of course I look, and both are charged. I finally see they are in the middle of a tiny patch of brood. Maybe 20 larvae, if that, about 2/3 days old.

So she was obviously Q for almost exactly "9 days"; went out for a second or third mating flight* about 5 days ago and never came back. The colony had just enough of a lifeline to hold on; I'll need to help it out but I REALLY hope it makes it.


* See later post.

 

[kazmcc]

Wow! Funny how she laid just enough eggs. Didn't know they could go out mating a few times, I thought they only did this once. I learn something every day on this forum

Btw, what are EQCs, I know they are queen cells but what does the E stand for?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Emergency Queen Cells.
I didn't know queens got mated and started laying then went out to mate again?

 

[Martley]

Btw, what are EQCs, I know they are queen cells but what does the E stand for?

Emergency Queen Cells as opposed to Swarm or Supercedure Cells

 

[kazmcc]

Got it, thanks Trawled the internet the other day wondering what BIAS stood for. D'oh!

 

[meidel]

I've had something similar - i didn't think she went out to mate again but thought that the first mating flights hadn't been entirely satisfactory for whatever reasons - mated with own drones perhaps - which can result in decreased viability of fertilised egg laying, or just hadn't mated successfully. But the workers tended to know summat wasn't right with queenie and made their own EQCs.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

I've had something similar - i didn't think she went out to mate again but thought that the first mating flights hadn't been entirely satisfactory for whatever reasons - mated with own drones perhaps - which can result in decreased viability of fertilised egg laying, or just hadn't mated successfully. But the workers tended to know summat wasn't right with queenie and made their own EQCs.

I'm surprised I haven't taken more flak; looking around the received wisdom is DEFINITELY Mate Mate Mate Lay not Mate Lay Mate Lay Mate Lay.

Two possibilities: as meidel says, they have balled her and superseded, but that seems like a VERY snap judgment. Or the received wisdom is wrong. If you think about it, Mate Lay Mate provides insurance and therefore an evolutionary advantage. Dunno; execution fits the Lady Jane Grey story better, I suppose...

 

[meidel]

I'm surprised I haven't taken more flak;

they're on holiday or expired with the heat

 

[Erichalfbee]

Are you sure nobody else can look in your hives?
Ask Kaz...she had a queen nicked on a "borrowed" frame.

 

[beeno]

they're on holiday or expired with the heat

The other way around more like. London is very hot indeed.

 

[kazmcc]

Ask Kaz...she had a queen nicked on a "borrowed" frame.

LOL don't remind me! It does happen, trust me

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

Are you sure nobody else can look in your hives?
Ask Kaz...she had a queen nicked on a "borrowed" frame.

I'm pretty sure I killed her, actually :-( . I KNOW she hasn't been nicked.

I never disturbed the nuc but I did move it for a while a week ago to inspect a neighbour: the weather was not great so I thought she would not be out. I may have been wrong and she would have arrived back to a cloud of alien bees. The timing fits and I guess I was just unlucky; lesson learnt not to interfere AT ALL with mating flights. That would suggest though that she went Mate Lay Mate.

 

[TryingToLetThemBee]

For the record, we do not have to rewrite bee biology, nor did I kill Lady Jane Grey. Like her namesake, she was executed. Turns out the patch of brood I found was drone brood, so she never got properly mated. Her namesake, we'll never know but have to suspect so, her having been married at 16 or 17. Amazingly, I started this thread on the 461st anniversary of the last of her 9 days...

The bees were hopelessly Q- when they offed her, but confusingly (to me) raised EQCs over drone brood (see http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=30752)

Mystery solved.