Piping virgin queen

[Taliesin]

Lovely sunny afternoon here. 5pm inspection of a hive that I split 3 weeks ago when swarm cells appeared. Caught a nice video of a virgin queen piping:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_ReVRrTPKE

 

[E&MBees]

Brilliant. I haven’t heard a piping queen before. Now know what to listen out for. Thanks.

 

[GuyNir]

Nice one

 

[thedozzer]

Really Nice video.
We only got a sound recording of one of ours doing it last year.
Its interesting to see her stop and press her self against the comb when she pipes, her hind wings seem to come half out as well.

 

[Taliesin]

Thanks all. Interesting too that all the bees around her stop as soon as she starts piping - it's especially noticeable the first time.

 

[Antipodes]

That's a nice rise to a C natural, with pitching issues (flat) on the third effort.

 

[Flyboy]

Great video, thanks!

 

[Popparand]

Wow! Great video. I have heard a queen piping on another video but never seen her in action. Well done.

 

[Susan1]

Excellent never heard that noise before.

 

[Bear]

Great video. I have heard that before but I always thought they did that just before they emerged from the cell.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Great video. I have heard that before but I always thought they did that just before they emerged from the cell.

Lots of reasons for piping, I've often heard emerged queens pipe.
Workers also pipe at times - usually just before the swarm takes off.

 

[beeno]

After emergence they pipe to challenge the virgins still in the cells and they quack in response and get killed. They are buffeted and harassed by workers when it time to go on mating flight and as they do so the workers "freeze" and one hypothesis is that it gives the queen breathing room.