Virgins above the queen excluder

[boca]

6 weeks ago I united some average colonies to get strong hives for the flow of robinia. I took off the queen and put the brood box on top of a queenright family and excluder. The honey I harvested and put back the empty frames.
Now I took off the supers with bees to be combined with mating nucs.
In tree out of 4 supers I found a virgin queen. No eggs no brood in the supers.
I doubt they are reared from the eggs that were in the supers 6 weeks ago.
I tend to believe that workers move larvae through the excluder and rear queens there regularly.

 

[oliver90owner]

regularly

Not a word I would use in this situation. In fact, I've cannot ever remeber it happening in my experience.

 

[boca]

"Wise men speak-because-they-have something to say; Fools-because-they-have-to say something."

 

[oliver90owner]

So lets not get all the new beeks, reading this, paranoid that it will happen to them. Because it won't. Exaggeration doesn't work on this forum because some of us don't let it happen. You can believe whatever you like but that changes nothing.

 

[Erichalfbee]

It's never happened to me either

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I doubt they are reared from the eggs that were in the supers 6 weeks ago.

And why not? they wouldn't have been able to get out - seems more plausible than workers in a Queenright colony shifting eggs up into the supers to make QC's just for a laugh

 

[oliver90owner]

The odds are shortening all the time on who is the fool. Is there anyone else that finds this 'phenomenon' happening 'regularly'?

 

[Gilberdyke John]

It's never happened to me either

nor me

 

[boca]

I have never seen a black swan therefore it does not exist.

 

[boca]

On the 9th of May I put brood frames above the queen excluder without entrance. Even if they reared a queen from the youngest egg, the queen was born on the 25th May.
I fount the virgin on the 21st of June. So the queen was at least 27 days closed in the super while the old queen in the box below. All the drones were dead on the qx.
I put the virgin in a nuc and a week later se was laying. Now the nuc is strong with beautiful compact brood.
I feel it unlikely that a virgin survives 27 days in a queenright family and later mates and become a healthy queen.

It is more plausible that the queen I found was younger, and the only theory I can come up is that egg or larva was moved up from the brood box.

How often does this happen? Curious scientists measured it:

Africanized workers move an average of 47% of brood reared as queens into empty cells, compared to about 4% moved by European bees.

Mark L. Winston: The Biology of the Honey Bee p. 126

Why would they move? Those who run langstroth boxes can confirm that swarm cells are almost always built on the bottom of the top frame.

 

[MuswellMetro]

a slip of the finger

 

[MuswellMetro]

On the 9th of May I put brood frames above the queen excluder without entrance. Even if they reared a queen from the youngest egg, the queen was born on the 25th May.
I fount the virgin on the 21st of June. So the queen was at least 27 days closed in the super while the old queen in the box below. All the drones were dead on the qx.
I put the virgin in a nuc and a week later se was laying. Now the nuc is strong with beautiful compact brood.
I feel it unlikely that a virgin survives 27 days in a queenright family and later mates and become a healthy queen.

It is more plausible that the queen I found was younger, and the only theory I can come up is that egg or larva was moved up from the brood box.

How often does this happen? Curious scientists measured it:


Why would they move? Those who run langstroth boxes can confirm that swarm cells are almost always built on the bottom of the top frame.

better link to the page via google ebooks

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...d to about 4% moved by European bees.&f=false

 

[oliver90owner]

Theories are theories. They need proof to be brought into the regular scientific field of acceptance. There is no evidence that this claimed phenomena occurs on a regular basis anywhere.

Let's get real with this - one isolated beek claiming to have found something happening on a regular basis and he expects all and sundry to accept it as a law? Let's all have a good laugh and move on - without putting the fear of 'queens in supers' in the minds of all the new beeks reading this. Believe the 'freak' result or the truth of everyday beekeeping. It has not suddenly changed after over a hundred years of beekeeping with framed hives.

 

[midnight sun]

So.......another one off Rab's Christmas card list!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Well, on the Christmas theme - I think the existence of santa is a bit more plausible than workers regularly moving eggs up into the supers to make queen cells (or even occasionally for that matter )

 

[Hivemaker.]

Well, on the Christmas theme - I think the existence of santa is a bit more plausible

...or of flying pigs.

 

[midnight sun]

Nicely put gents! Ho Ho Ho!

 

[REDWOOD]

I have seen flying pigs.... or was it on an album cover.

 

[BeeJayBee]

I have seen flying pigs.... or was it on an album cover.

This one? http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pink-floyd-inflatable-pig-breaks-free/

 

[beeno]

It could be that the queen got her abdomen through the QX to lay in brace comb on the bottom edge in the first super? I have seen that and there were no brood elsewhere in the super. Scrub queens reportedly go through the QX.