Swarming conundrum

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Hi Dominic,
Not surprisingly, I am with itma on this one. However, I did put empty drawn frame into one of my colonies thinking queenie did not have enough laying space and they filled that with nectar too!
Swarmy bees imho is often created by the beek in overfeeding and consequent lack of space in the hive i.e. crowding -too many bees, not enough queen pheromone to get through to all the bees and lack of laying space for all the syrup.
If you do have a drone laying queen no one has mentioned that a lot of your brood frames will be ruined by spring.
Remember reading an article about pure bred bees on some isolated island and quite a few ended up breeding with drones from their own colonies in the DCA. Pargyle, Itchy may well have hit the text books already, and thanks for the recap, but a lot of people on this forum still believe in garden matings.
 
I'm guessing the brood comb would be ruined because all the brood would be drone brood and the cells would enlarged to accommodate them??? Just a guess.

As for inbreeding: Oh the perils of diploid drones!
 
Would the bees re-work the cells? They are,after all, worker cells. At times there have been drone cells ( enlarged worker cells) on my frames when the bees needed them and at other times I have looked at those same frames and they are wall to wall worker.
 
Would the bees re-work the cells? They are,after all, worker cells. At times there have been drone cells ( enlarged worker cells) on my frames when the bees needed them and at other times I have looked at those same frames and they are wall to wall worker.

Certainly mine did this ... I had loads of drone comb in June and July ... now virtually all been reworked by the bees to worker size .. still a few drone sized cells along the bottom of the frames but these are now being filled with stores.
 
I think with a DLQ what happens is she'd lay in a worker cell then the workers realise what's happened and just extend the cell outward to take the drone - thus the undulating untidy looking surface you see on comb which has had a DLQ. I think the cell width and height satay the same (I may be wrong) so if they again have a properly fertile queen they'll just take the cell back down to it's 'proper' depth.
 
a lot of people on this forum still believe in garden matings.

I don't think it's a question of 'still believing', as if it doesn't ever happen. It'd be worth checking online for information about Apiary Vicinity Mating http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/avm.html as well as posts and videos elsewhere by Jon (Jon Getty, from Ireland).

Hivemaker wrote at length about Moonlight Mating some time ago. This thread http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16767

For island mating stations, check Denmark and Buckfasts, also BIBBA article about Laeosoe http://www.bibba.com/laeosoe.php

Bees will work their comb depending on the castes they need, so will alter worker comb to produce drones and vice versa.
 
I don't think it's a question of 'still believing', as if it doesn't ever happen. It'd be worth checking online for information about Apiary Vicinity Mating http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/avm.html as well as posts and videos elsewhere by Jon (Jon Getty, from Ireland).

Hivemaker wrote at length about Moonlight Mating some time ago. This thread http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=16767

For island mating stations, check Denmark and Buckfasts, also BIBBA article about Laeosoe http://www.bibba.com/laeosoe.php

Bees will work their comb depending on the castes they need, so will alter worker comb to produce drones and vice versa.

Yes ...but the question was whether Virgin Queens mate with drones from their own colony and the moonlight mating method, usually, includes a number of hives/colonies as a source for drones - not a single hive. Even HM makes the point:

"Normally, only 15-25% of drones mate with queens from the same apiary if they are not geographically isolated – other drones also come to the congregation area from their colonies up to 15 km away."

It really is not desirable to have interbreeding of drones/queens solely from the same colony as the genetics are very bad and lead to all sorts of problems.
 
BUT, the production of drones and supercedure cells very late in the season would suggest that mating with your genetic brothers is the best a queen can do in an emergency. The excellent link http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/avm.html suggests to me that this is what will happen - avm, or queenless demise.
 
BUT, the production of drones and supercedure cells very late in the season would suggest that mating with your genetic brothers is the best a queen can do in an emergency. The excellent link http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/avm.html suggests to me that this is what will happen - avm, or queenless demise.

Itchy, you are being too anthropomorphic.

The urges to raise Q and Drone in the same colony are linked.
It its time for Q cells, its time for Drones. In the normal run of things, they make drones before they get around to QCs.
If Q starts firing blanks, and therefore needs to be superceded, those blanks will produce drones.
They aren't thinking what they are doing.
As regards mating in a DCA, its nature's way of shaking the genetic dice. And at this time of year, whether or not they should actually get to a DCA, those dice would be very heavily loaded.
 
Its just an oddity then. I understood that most creatures do not carry out resource hungry activities (like making drones WAY late in the year) without very good reason.
 
Hi itma,
Are you saying that if a colony produces drone cells this time of the year in conjunction with QCs it is categorically from a drone laying queen? There may be some drones in there already? The OP has not confirmed whether it was drone brood in drone cells or worker cells. My supercedure hive has still kept their drones and they are out flying.
 
Hi itma,
Are you saying that if a colony produces drone cells this time of the year in conjunction with QCs it is categorically from a drone laying queen? There may be some drones in there already? The OP has not confirmed whether it was drone brood in drone cells or worker cells. My supercedure hive has still kept their drones and they are out flying.

No, what I said was the other way round - if Q is starting firing blanks and so needing to be replaced, then those 'blanks' will produce drones.

I didn't say 'drones now must mean DLQ'. But I would have my own personal suspicions that she just might be heading that way ...
 
Thanks itma. I was just thinking that before my queen was superceded, which was long after main drone brood production, she kept laying small regular patches of drone brood approx. 20 in drone cells regularly.
 
Thanks itma. I was just thinking that before my queen was superceded, which was long after main drone brood production, she kept laying small regular patches of drone brood approx. 20 in drone cells regularly.

Remember that drone cell production, and steering Q in the direction of those cells, is a worker function. While Q is still able to do the business, she is simply responding to the cell size that she has been presented with.
The workers, not Q, make the supercedure and drone (brood) decisions.
DLQ on the other hand is trying to respond correctly "but it comes out wrong".
 
Hi itma thanks for re-inforcing that knowledge to me and the forum. We still can't determine whether Dominic has a DLQ or not. Perhaps he could take a quick pic weather permitting as it is going to be a glorious day here! Marvellous isn't it, the season has just started and we are already talking potential swarms and supercedure!
 

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