Supercedure Number 1 desirable trait

[Beesnaturally]

All well and good until she can't mate due to poor weather or gets picked off by a swallow, do you attest that to bad genes and requeen that colony with a queen from a luckier hive?

The Race Is Not Always to the Swift, Nor the Battle to the Strong; But That Is the Best Way to Bet​

Yes, the flight competition is, for both queen and drones, in my view a critical part of the local population's health-seeking process.

 

[rolande]

Rolande, I suspect that also responds to most of your questions; but tell me if not.

@Beesnaturally , no, I only had one question (the other part of my post was a statement of fact).

what size prime swarms do your colonies throw? Only asked because you mentioned that they don't send out large swarms so I'm just curious as to your observations.

 

[Frizzaldo]

The Race Is Not Always to the Swift, Nor the Battle to the Strong; But That Is the Best Way to Bet​

Yes, the flight competition is, for both queen and drones, in my view a critical part of the local population's health-seeking process.

Are you able to breed bees that can dodge swallows?

 

[Beesnaturally]

@Beesnaturally , no, I only had one question (the other part of my post was a statement of fact).

what size prime swarms do your colonies throw? Only asked because you mentioned that they don't send out large swarms so I'm just curious as to your observations.

I don't observe many. I expect they are typical. So I'm reasoning from the other end. The more then they are stacked with hatching brood and ready cells, and the less they swarm out, and the fewer years they swarm in... and the smaller the prime swarms, and the more they supercede smoothly.... They more they will tend to come to my attention as potential breeders as good year on year go-getters.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Are you able to breed bees that can dodge swallows?

We don't have many swallows nowadays. But when we did, and before we screwed with them, clearly natural process ensured queens dodged swallows.
In fact the swallows can be seen as an agent of health.

 

[drex]

You mean like typhoid?

 

[Beesnaturally]

You mean like typhoid?

If bees sufferered from typhoid, but some bees didn't (and none-one 'helped' them), pretty soon all bees would be immune from typhoid.

(This relies on resistance or tolerance to typhoid being a heritable trait: almost everything is one way or another.)

The concept you really need is 'pressure'. In nature populations only overcome challenges when they are pressured to do so. No typhoid, no pressure to develop resistance to typhoid. No hunting birds, no pressure the maintain behaviours to avoid hunting birds.

So, yes. Like typhoid.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I was thinking of him the other day when I was at the Royal Welsh
View attachment 33281

I hope you don't keep looking at tractors on your 'phone when at work. People will start to ask questions.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

I am happy to see supercedure, there's no reason why queens should not be well-fed and if a colony has gone all season without swarming and supercedes or even supersedes, that's fine by me.

 

[B_north]

The concept you really need is 'pressure'. In nature populations only overcome challenges when they are pressured to do so.

Or...... they go extinct.

 

[Beesnaturally]

Or...... they go extinct.

I think that's unlikely. They've survived and gained defensive behaviours for twenty thousand times one thousand years. Without any help from humans. Certainly mine show no sign of going extinct.
You are misunderstanding evolutionary pressure, but that's not surprising as its a bit of an obscure and specialist concept. Every population of everything that lives does so within the ever-shifting constraints of its environment. It thus always pressured in multiple ways, and responds by making each new generation out of those individuals that do best in the environment of the day.

I don't suppose that helps?

 

[B_north]

No, I was not talking about bees necessarily going extinct but other species when faced with pressure have not always overcome it, they have succumbed.

 

[Beesnaturally]

No, I was not talking about bees necessarily going extinct but other species when faced with pressure have not always overcome it, they have succumbed.

Yes. Meteorites and humans seem best at making the environmental changes that are too intense and rapid to cope with.

More seriously, yes, still, but it happens surprising rarely in nature. Many extinctions of the past I understand were a case of evolving to become new species, which aren't really extinctions. Very rapid and intense population falls are surprisingly common. A species can be reduced to 5% of its prior population, and bounce back to where it was within a few years. Of course its faster with fast-reproducing species.