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Author Topic: What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!  (Read 15647 times)

Offline Diver

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #20 on: November 15, 2005, 07:24:49 am »
downunder said

Queens simply do not layer sperm, it is a common beekeeping misconception.
Queens cannot choose what sperm they use to fertilize an egg
Sperm is mixed in the spermatheca.
Drone sperm does clump and sometimes you can get a higher proportion of some subfamilies
We inseminate queens with 5 unrelated drones and get relatively the same distribution of subfamilies every time.

My query is:
From the above it would appear that the sperm is mixed quite well in the spermatheca to get relatively the same distribution of subfamilies every time.  Is this mixing done by the queen, or or the multiple mating over a short period of time. Does the occasional clumping result from a malfunction in the queen or mating over a longer period allowing the sperm to congeal somewhat between each drone mating. Neither of these, but something else?
To know this would help dispel any misconceptions and help in raising better queens possibly.
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Offline Michael Bush

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #21 on: November 15, 2005, 08:23:37 am »
All the evidence I've seen or heard (studies, my experience etc.) would say it's a little of both.  There are times that you see population shifts in a hive where it used to be all black and now there's a mixture of yellow.  Same queen but later in the year.  It does not "layer" per se.  It's not like you get all of one subfamily followed by a different subfamily.  But it's also not a uniform mix.  As mentioned above, the sperm "clumps" (if that's what you want to call it) and there are periodic changes in the mixture of subfamilies from time to time.

This "misconception" is based on real life observations when there are changes over time in color, demenor etc.
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Offline Horns Pure Honey

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #22 on: November 15, 2005, 06:28:09 pm »
Very nicely put Michael :D
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Offline downunder

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« Reply #23 on: November 15, 2005, 07:16:06 pm »
Quote from: Michael Bush
All the evidence I've seen or heard (studies, my experience etc.) would say it's a little of both.  There are times that you see population shifts in a hive where it used to be all black and now there's a mixture of yellow.  Same queen but later in the year.  It does not "layer" per se.  It's not like you get all of one subfamily followed by a different subfamily.  But it's also not a uniform mix.  As mentioned above, the sperm "clumps" (if that's what you want to call it) and there are periodic changes in the mixture of subfamilies from time to time.

This "misconception" is based on real life observations when there are changes over time in color, demenor etc.



I'm not arguing that you get these population shifts, however after genotyping 200 bees at random at any time of the year from a colony you get all subfamilies represented. This indicates that this shift is not so significant.

We have been doing this genetic work for 10 years now. Temper shifts in colonies can simply be related to season itself, food availability, pest presence etc.

I'm not sure wether all this genetics stuff actually helps or just confuses the issue more.

I still have not seen one bit of published information to support that the proportion of progeny in say 60,000 bees is greatly uneven.

I think if it does happen it's more to do with a lower number of drone fathers during mating and one of these clumping significantly.

Unfortunately the scientific world talks replicates. You must be able to replicate this at any time of year with any colony. This is where the "exceptions to the rule theory" breaks down

Offline Jerrymac

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #24 on: November 15, 2005, 07:39:21 pm »
Drones don't have fathers... Correct??? So if a lot of drones from one queen mates with another queen, that could lessen the number of different traits in a hive.

Suppose a queen was mated with 10 drones that were all produced by the same queen.
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Offline Horns Pure Honey

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #25 on: November 15, 2005, 07:49:28 pm »
You are correct, drones do not have fathers, only grandfathers.
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Offline Michael Bush

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« Reply #26 on: November 15, 2005, 08:04:32 pm »
>Temper shifts in colonies can simply be related to season itself, food availability, pest presence etc.

Temper.  Yes.  Color.  No.
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Offline downunder

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« Reply #27 on: November 15, 2005, 08:10:30 pm »
Ok my mistake, what I ment to say is male companions.

If drones from one hive all mate with one queen then you get a uniform progeny. This is what happens when you are maintaining lines by A.I. or mating them in an isolated area.

If it happens I hope it's drones from a colony with a good temper :D

In Australia we do not have Varroa, so we still have an extremely high feral population 70 - 110 feral colonies per square kilometre of bushland, so this mating with the same drones is generally unlikely.

Offline downunder

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« Reply #28 on: November 15, 2005, 08:27:20 pm »
Quote from: Michael Bush
>Temper shifts in colonies can simply be related to season itself, food availability, pest presence etc.

Temper.  Yes.  Color.  No.


I am hearing exactly what you say, but this has not been published. It has been said to me by a few beekeepers over the years. I'm not saying it doesn't happen either.

In most cases their queens are not marked or wings clipped and they cannot guarentee 100% that it was the original queen.

I've worked 300 colonies for the last 15 years and can't say I've seen this happen. It doesn't mean it doesn't, but it would be a hard one to research and publish without many replicates.

What you see visually and what you see with genetics can be deceiving from both directions. As I said, we have genotyped 1000,s of colonies with 200 bee samples and all subfamilies are always represented.

It is 100% verified by removing the queens spermatheca and genotyping the sperm within it.

There is still a lot we don't know about things like sperm competition and mate choice (wether they can naturally avoid in-breeding or not) however it's not yet published but we a working on it.

We have just completed a large experiment individually watching more than 300 queens going on mating flights, how many flights, duration, mating sign,s etc. We have then genotyped the brood to look at the amount of sub-families present, over several seasons and in multiple countries.

We are also looking at mate choice in remote location by providing queens with related drones, unrelated drones, and mixed populations to investigate the issue of mate choice.

Hopefully we will have some useful answers shortly.

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #29 on: November 16, 2005, 01:08:37 am »
Quote from: downunder
We have just completed a large experiment individually watching more than 300 queens going on mating flights, how many flights, duration, mating sign,s etc. We have then genotyped the brood to look at the amount of sub-families present, over several seasons and in multiple countries.


Do you have in internet your reports?

I just found interesting piece http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/03-037.pdf
Interesting is survival of queens after mating nuc.

But one question. Here is the text: "During the first 5 or 6 days of adult life, worker bees consume large amounts of pollen to obtain the protein and amino acids required to complete their growth and development. If young adult worker bees do not consume needed proteins, their hypopharyngeal glands (brood food glands) will not develop completely, and their royal jelly will not support normal growth and development of worker larvae or egg production in the adult queen." http://maarec.cas.psu.edu/bkCD/HBBiology/nutrition_supplements.htm

I wonder when emerged queen is in cage and nurser bees cannot feed it, is it any harm if emerged queen goes not get during first days it's froteins "to finish it's development"?.

Have you handled this issue?

Offline Finsky

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« Reply #30 on: November 16, 2005, 01:50:45 am »
Quote from: downunder

In Australia we do not have Varroa, so we still have an extremely high feral population 70 - 110 feral colonies per square kilometre of bushland, so this mating with the same drones is generally unlikely.


  Every 100 meter's interval there is one colony?

Amazing! That is true!
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Offline downunder

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« Reply #31 on: November 16, 2005, 02:43:21 am »
I should say that is the case in my area, Australia is a big place a lot of it doesn't even have trees so it is varied. Nevertheless the populations are very high. At present we are investigating the so called "background noise" from these feral contributing Small Hive Beetle to managed colonies placed in the area.

Offline Michael Bush

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #32 on: November 16, 2005, 08:18:15 am »
>In most cases their queens are not marked or wings clipped and they cannot guarentee 100% that it was the original queen.

All my queens are are marked (EXCEPT the ones I find that are not the original queen).  I try to breed the black ones so I'm very aware of the color of each hive.
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Offline downunder

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« Reply #33 on: November 16, 2005, 08:30:00 am »
[quote="Finsky
Do you have in internet your reports?[/b]

These queen experiments are not published yet. They will appear in scientific journals such as "Apidologie" when completed. I must say I am not the cheif researcher in these particular experiments.


I just found interesting piece http://www.rirdc.gov.au/reports/HBE/03-037.pdf
Interesting is survival of queens after mating nuc.



It's funny you should mention his research, I was speaking to the author at work today. Most queen breeders now catch mated queens in 3 week cycles as apposed to the old 2 week cycle as they have better acceptance rates. It also showed that there was no significant difference in the cage type used to introduce the queens


I wonder when emerged queen is in cage and nurser bees cannot feed it, is it any harm if emerged queen goes not get during first days it's froteins "to finish it's development"?.

Have you handled this issue?[/quote]



I haven't handled this issue however it would be reasonable to assume that it would be detrimental to her development. I don't know anybody here that use emergence cages, most prefer to have her with the bees.

Offline downunder

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #34 on: November 16, 2005, 08:49:06 am »
All my queens are are marked (EXCEPT the ones I find that are not the original queen).  I try to breed the black ones so I'm very aware of the color of each hive.[/quote]

Do you control what drones they mate with?

I'm not trying to stir up a hornets nest (so to speak) :D , but as scientists we are taught to go by refereed publications. If we disagree with a theory we need to prove otherwise and have it accepted by impartial referees.

I've recently talked about this issue with 3 world experts on AI on this issue. They say if the temperature is cold the sperm is more prone to coiling and clumping. They agreed that there would be shifts favouring one subfamily over another, however they did not think it would be very significant.

We dissect spermatheca's stain them with pippidium iodide for flourescence microscopy to look at sperm viability. The live sperm stain one colour and dead sperm another (Yes the spermatheca contains dead sperm). This clumping of sperm is visible. What is interesting however is that a lot of the sperm that is clumped is dead.

Yet another mystery for us to work on.

Offline Michael Bush

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #35 on: November 16, 2005, 09:02:04 pm »
>Do you control what drones they mate with?

Other than my drones, no.  But the ferals are where they came from and that's what else I see besides mine.

>I'm not trying to stir up a hornets nest (so to speak)  , but as scientists we are taught to go by refereed publications. If we disagree with a theory we need to prove otherwise and have it accepted by impartial referees.

I've seen what I've observed originally denied by science and eventually proven by science far too many times to believe "science" over my own observations.

>They agreed that there would be shifts favouring one subfamily over another, however they did not think it would be very significant.

Excatly.  There are shifts.
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Offline Finsky

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What was that sound/ a broodless colony. NEED HELP!
« Reply #36 on: November 17, 2005, 01:13:15 am »
Quuen and nosema

Hi downunder

I just have around 15 hives but every spring nosema spoils 1-2 queen so they cannot lay eggs any more. With workers I found that when I give emerged bees from healthy hive, nosema spoiled hive starts to develope normally.

That is odd to me that queen and workers have so different tolerance against nosema.

Before that notion I casted away queen of shrinked hive but during couple of years I found that it is not necessary. Problem is how to give new bees at spring. At night temperature may be  -5C and by day +5C. Most of brood catch cold. Terrarium heaters and electrict heating resolved that problem.

 

anything