What is happening to our queens

[Boston Bees]

Maybe the drones just need to improve their aim

"Not in the face!!!!!"

 

[Erichalfbee]

"Not in the face!!!!!"

Sorry. That was just so funny.
I’m amazed people find finance for such bonkers research.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I’m amazed people find finance for such bonkers research.

Well that's modern 'research' for you
It's not about the pursuit of knowledge nowadays -
it's all about the pursuit and harvesting of funding.

 

[Mint Bee]

I assume you speaking to me Mint Bee?

The principles underlying evolution and husbandry have been probably been known for tens of thousands of years, since mankind took up farming. You find need data to know they work, any more than you need to know what gravity is to know that a suspended object will fall. (As it happens we know a lot more about the machinery of population husbandry than we do of the machinery of gravity).

A couple more examples: you don't need to be a mathematical to know that the casino always wins in the end; and you don't have to be an epidemiologist to know that a new virus can create a pandemic.

You don't need data on falling object because the evidence is all around us and is a sense sufficient data. You don't need data on casino winnings because the mathematicians can tell you its inevitable. The same for new viruses.

You don't need data on bee breeding or the evolution of natural bee populations to know what effect systematic selection of the best is likely to do, what effect systematic interference in the selection process will do.

These things are very long known and now well understood aspects of biology, evolutionary biology, and animal husbandry.

My comment is generally to all who have an opinion, but when challenged, cant provide any data for another to review and either agree or disagree with (it occurs regularly here and on other fora). If you are or were trained as a scientist then I would have thought you would recognise observing and recording data is the basis for proposing and proving new theories, or disproving 'well understood aspects of biology'. You stated that treatment free beekeeping lead to variable, but improved over winter survival, but when asked for this data, can only respond that its in your head. This is not the basis for an informed discussion.

look up Russell's teapot

 

[Boston Bees]

My comment is generally to all who have an opinion, but when challenged, cant provide any data for another to review and either agree or disagree with (it occurs regularly here and on other fora). If you are or were trained as a scientist then I would have thought you would recognise observing and recording data is the basis for proposing and proving new theories, or disproving 'well understood aspects of biology'. You stated that treatment free beekeeping lead to variable, but improved over winter survival, but when asked for this data, can only respond that its in your head. This is not the basis for an informed discussion.

look up Russell's teapot

Indeed

Beesnaturally, if you want to come on a forum and say something somewhat accusatory, and very definitive-sounding, like "If you want to bring in 'healthy' bees, or restrict the brood nest, or treat for varroa, you are part of the reason too many queens fail", and then say that you are basing this on your experience building up 80 colonies on a "live and let die" basis, people are going to ask you for some evidence.

We aren't arguing about whether a suspended object will fall. We are discussing whether or not queen excluders, and varroa treatment, are correlated with less healthy queens. You appear to have no evidence that this is the case, despite your extensive ability to gather some via your beekeeping activities. For example, you could quote some data on the longevity of your queens, or their success in getting mated. But you have no figures to back this up, other than to say "I think my winter survival rates used to be worse than they are now" and "Take my word for it, I have a degree".

 

[madasafish]

Indeed

If you want to come on a forum and say something somewhat accusatory, and very definitive-sounding, like "If you want to bring in 'healthy' bees, or restrict the brood nest, or treat for varroa, you are part of the reason too many queens fail", and then say that you are basing this on your experience building up 80 colonies on a "live and let die" basis, people are going to ask you for some evidence.

We aren't arguing about whether a suspended object will fall. We are discussing whether or not queen excluders, and varroa treatment, are correlated with less healthy queens. You appear to have no evidence that this is the case, despite your extensive ability to gather some via your beekeeping activities. For example, you could quote some data on the longevity of your queens, or their success in getting mated. But you have no figures to back this up, other than to say "I think my winter survival rates used to be worse than they are now" and "Take my word for it, I have a degree".

Precisely..

 

[Gilberdyke John]

Maybe the drones just need to improve their aim

I thought earlier about asking if it stings when it gets in your eyes but desisted. However I'm giving to temptation now

 

[Murox]

My comment is generally to all who have an opinion, but when challenged, cant provide any data for another to review and either agree or disagree with (it occurs regularly here and on other fora). If you are or were trained as a scientist then I would have thought you would recognise observing and recording data is the basis for proposing and proving new theories, or disproving 'well understood aspects of biology'. You stated that treatment free beekeeping lead to variable, but improved over winter survival, but when asked for this data, can only respond that its in your head. This is not the basis for an informed discussion.
look up Russell's teapot

I like it ! of course he was primarily concerned with religion, though beekeeping is a very close second.
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

― Bertrand Russell

 

[Apple]

I like it ! of course he was primarily concerned with religion, though beekeeping is a very close second.
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”

― Bertrand Russell

OH NO!!!... Not again!

 

[Mint Bee]

As it dealt with the teaching of intelligent design verses evolution in the US, the more appropriate comparison would have been the flying spaghetti monster.

may you be touched by his noodly appendage

 

[Nige.Coll]

Hive temperature can result in queens emerging with deformed wings.

First, brood raised at sub-optimal temperatures can result in deformations such as deformed wings, legs, and abdomen [17, 18]. Although eclosion rates are not different when brood are exposed to temperatures between 31–37°C, lengths of wings, proboscis, and tergum are significantly shorter and deformed bees appear at both ends of the extreme temperatures [6]. When pupae are exposed at 20°C for 96 h, eclosed Africanized honey bees (A. mellifera scutellata) show high percentages of split stings and deformed wings [19].

 

[beeno]

That's exactly what I said

Sorry, thought that your hypothesis would lead you to the conclusion that it was going to be most varroa in QCs. My mistake.

 

[beeno]

This year here was bad for queen rearing. I didn't notice many drones as per usual ....for a start. I think other insects are also affected. For instance, I have only just started seeing wasps, which is really rare because we usually have heaps. We have hardly had any flies this summer, and haven't had a mosquito bite ...mosquitoes are almost totally absent.

Sorry about the queen rearing. Absence of mosquitos sounds bliss though.

 

[beeno]

Well that's modern 'research' for you
It's not about the pursuit of knowledge nowadays -
it's all about the pursuit and harvesting of funding.

That's why we get so much Academia going into beekeeping research, a subject matter which they know nothing about and then lecture us on beekeeping! Most annoying.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

a subject matter which they know nothing about and then lecture us on beekeeping! Most annoying.

Sounds like we're talking about quite a few 'expert' beekeepers

 

[Goran]

In the matter of early queens.. If I have interest I could guarantee 1st batch of mated queens between 5.-10. May.. At the end of March, beginning of April there are not rarely nice patches of sealed drone brood.. At a time is mayor replacing of old bees with young ones at large.. Plenty of pollen ( we have sometimes here " May disease"). Only horror weather can kill the job.. I am in inland, on the coast they can start 2-3 weeks earlier..
But again, low value of queens at my place doesn't encourage me to do so.. For my needs I start qrearing when all " main forages" pass, less fuss..
Pics are from April.

 

[Brian Bush]

The swallows and swifts compromise the bees’ vision around here more than anything else.
The article also mentions queens’ decisions to undertake risky flights. Do they understand the risks? Do they weigh them up? I always understood that the workers pushed them out.
[/QUOTE]
I was helping a novice beekeeper with her hives. She only contacted me when they had swarmed. I duly collected and hived the swarm and then, because of the size of the colony i created a second colonie from the remaining bees. There were many queen cells available so I placed 2 in each of the new hives and culled the rest.
On returning a few weeks later she regailed me with seeing the fuss around one hive when the virgin went on her mating flight. She had seen the workers emerging from the hive and then again a fuss when she assumed the mated queen returned later in the afternoon.
One hive had a newly mated laying queen. The other appeared to be queenless.
Then she told me of the interest the swallows had shown in the bees when she thought the queen was returning.
Faced with a worker or a big fat queen I know which I would opt for!
I watched the swallows for a while and they were certainly taking the odd bee although they were keener of the flies around the dung heap.

 

[Norton]

Maybe the drones just need to improve their aim

Actually not far from the truth.
There is a huge problem with drone/semen quality = motility and quantity, induced by chemical/substance residues.

 

[Beesnaturally]

My comment is generally to all who have an opinion, but when challenged, cant provide any data for another to review and either agree or disagree with (it occurs regularly here and on other fora). If you are or were trained as a scientist then I would have thought you would recognise observing and recording data is the basis for proposing and proving new theories, or disproving 'well understood aspects of biology'. You stated that treatment free beekeeping lead to variable, but improved over winter survival, but when asked for this data, can only respond that its in your head. This is not the basis for an informed discussion.

First: I'm not trained as a scientist. That doesn't mean I know nothing of science and scientific method, or evolution. I know enough to know it is all but pointless collecting data unless you are doing a controlled experiment. I'm not.

There are many reasons why colonies die, and unless you discover what they are, all you can really say for sure is they died. For what its worth, roughly, over ten years of live and let die, I've lost something of the order of 1 of 3, 2 of 6, 3 of 12, 5 of 20, then 20% of 40, 15% of 60, 12% of 70, 10% of 100; 10% of 80, this winter 16% thus far.

You also need to know, to make sense of those figures, that for the first 3 or 3 years I was bringing in swarms and cut-outs. So my losses then were greater than those figures suggest.

But: many of these have been small and late nucs, that I've had to learn the hard way fall easily. I've never renewed queens so many, I suspect, have perished from winter queen failure. One year I lost 4 to badgers. I've never changed brood comb. In so many ways I'm a novice, an amateur, and more interested in seeing strength emerge than analysing the causes of failure.

This is a familiar sort of pattern to somebody more interested in finding colonies that thrive when left alone, and wanting to build numbers (of such bees) urgently in order to gain a measure of drone influence. Nature, I know, has a method of locating the strongest, and that is all I need to know. As John Kefuss says, when you travel in a plane you don't need to know how it works. You need to _that_ it works. My best hives, now, are long lived, make very good drone numbers, and are very productive under my regime.

So when you ask for data you have to understand that whatever I could provide isn't comparable to that done under controlled experimental conditions. It's really just: a better proportion come through now. And by reported standards, and given that I'm a bad beekeeper by most yardsticks - and given that I don't treat or meddle in any way at all, not so bad I think.

I'm not in the game of experimental conditions, or managing to the nines, or wasting time documenting things that don't give me useful information. I'm in the game of understand nature's method and watching it play out; understanding traditional husbandry methods, make best from best, and seeing what happens. And I have maybe 40 year-on-year good performers, so I'm in a good position to move things up a notch. The experiment has been a success.

You can wear blinkers and demand data all you like. That is my data, my method, my story. And the main message, which is where we started remains: to the extent that there is a flawed - or no - selection process, health and vitality must be expected to decay.

I'm pretty sure you knew that already. I'm also pretty sure most beekeepers don't appreciate quite what it means. What it means is: to micromanage the health of an open mating population is to weaken it.

That's not theory, and I'm not asking you to take my word for it. That is the basis of husbandry, modelled from the very fundamentals of Darwinism. Anyone who wishes to argue with that patently lacks the information they need to understand what they are doing.

 

[user 20297]

It is all but pointless collecting data unless you are doing a controlled experiment.

Even if you did have the "required" data, you'll find there are plenty of beekeepers who will challenge information about beekeeping which is derived from controlled, experimental conditions.