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Author Topic: how AHB take over our honeybee hives  (Read 3771 times)

Offline bee-nuts

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how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« on: June 29, 2009, 05:01:23 am »
I have read a little one the fact that AHB can somehow take over our honey bee hives.  From what I have read it sounds like they are not possitive on how they do it but have thieories on how they do it.  I watched a documentary years ago about an area of africa that somehow the killer bee could not ocupy for some reason.  If memory serves me they put a killer bee nest in this area and found that a bee (a regular worker through what is called thelytoky, ofspring are "pseudo-clones of their mothers) would sneek in and lay its own eggs and thus take over the hive in the process.  I have tried to find this info on the net but failed untill tonight when I read this article from a link in a post on this forum.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/11/30/2105083.htm?site=science&topic=latest   

After reading this, I wondered, hmm, if this Cape honeybee which is capable of taking over a killer bees nest, why is it not possible that the killer bees too have inherited this trait to a degree through crossbreeding in africa, and when presented our strain of honeybees that they can easily take them over. 

If there is proff that that they do it some other way what is it please.

hope this makes sense, it is past my bedtime and I am tierd
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Offline JP

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #1 on: June 29, 2009, 08:51:12 am »
Usurpation

Research Project: BIOLOGY AND POPULATION DYNAMICS OF AFRICANIZED HONEY BEES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS WITH DOMESTIC AND FERAL HONEY BEES
Location: Honey Bee Research

Title: Nest Usurpation by African Honey Bees in the Southwestern U.S.


Authors

 Schneider, Stanley - UNIV. NORTH CAROLINA 
 Deeby, Thomas 
 Gilley, David 
 Degrandi-Hoffman, Gloria 


Submitted to: Insectes Sociaux
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: April 17, 2004
Publication Date: November 20, 2004
Citation: Schneider, S.S., Deeby, T., Gilley, D.C. and DeGrandi-Hoffman, G. Seasonal nest usurpation of European colonies by African swarms in Arizona, USA. Insect. Soc. 51:359-364. 2004.

Interpretive Summary: Nest usurpation (also known as colony takeover) consists of a small swarm of African honey bees invading a European honey bee colony. The African queen in the swarm replaces the European queen in the invaded colony. Colony takeover has been suggested to play a role in the success of African bees in the New World. While nest usurpation has been previously documented in South America, it has not been reported to occur in the U.S. We monitored usurpation activity over a two-year period in an apiary with 76 five-frame nucleus colonies in Tucson, AZ. Each colony was headed by a "Golden Italian" European queen. We examined the colonies every 10-14 days to determine if the colony was thriving, weak or queenless. Weak colonies were requeened. We observed an average annual usurpation rate of 21.1 plus or minus 9.3%. The greatest usurpation activity occurred from October-December and coincided with the period of seasonal absconding by African bees in the Tucson region. Thriving and weak colonies experienced similar, low monthly usurpation rates. However, queenless colonies and those that had a caged queen or had been recently requeened were 2-8 times more likely to be invaded especially in the fall-winter. These results suggest that cues associated with compromised queen condition or diminished brood rearing could be used by usurpation is an important, but annually variable factor contributing to the spread of African bees in the southwestern U.S.
Technical Abstract: We examined nest usurpation (colony takeover) by African honey bee swarms over a two-year period in an apiary that contained 76 European colonies maintained in Tucson, AZ. We observed a mean annual usurpation rate of 21%, with highest usurpation rates occurring from October-December. Queenless colonies, colonies that had a caged queen and those that had been recently re-queened were 2-8 times more likely to be invaded than were colonies that contained an actively laying queen. This trend was particularly pronounced in October-December. During those months the usurpation rates experienced by queenless and caged-queen colonies approached 20-50%. These results suggest that nest usurpation may be an important factor contributing to the spread of African bees and the loss of European honey bee matrilines in the southwestern U.S., and that queen condition may have a major influence on host colony susceptibility to usurpation.


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Offline Nathen

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #2 on: June 29, 2009, 09:35:34 am »
That's funny.  I was just reading about Cape bees yesterday.  Had never heard of them before.

I would be interested to see the results of an inverse study.  If you start out with all African queens, how often do they get usurped by European queens?  I think I read once that Africanized hives are difficult to requeen with a European queen because the Africanized workers are much more likely to reject a European queen.
-Nathen

Offline charles

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #3 on: June 29, 2009, 09:08:14 pm »
Do AHB dominate Latin America, or are there still lots of European genetics down there? I wonder how effective a movement to export European bees into AHB "territory" would be. Could we help the European bees usurp their more hostile cousins?
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Offline Bee-Bop

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #4 on: June 29, 2009, 09:29:28 pm »
One of the problems with line of thinking, Requeen with European Bees is;

Research has shown thar the African Bee is much faster in flight than the European bee, so when the European bee goes out to mate BINGO, those speedy African Drones are firstist with the mostest !

This is also the way with the African Queen, she flies faster than the European Drones, the poor slow European Drones live a long life !

This was one of the earliest observations of the African Bees in Brazil.

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Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2009, 02:28:39 am »
If you live in the northern tier states chances are you won't have to worry about AHB for another 10 years, if then. 
Seems that even in South America the AHB only migrated so far south until the milder temps go too cold for them to over winter.  It is probable tha the same thing will happen here in the USA.  If so I place the demarcation line about Sisque Mountains in Southren Oregan on the west side, because of those mountains but east of that maybe up into the Columbia Basin in eastern Washington if day time temps are the indicator verses night time temps.  Those else where can extrapolate from there.
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Offline bee-nuts

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2009, 04:27:54 am »
Brian, you lost me.   

"I place the demarcation line about Sisque Mountains in Southren Oregan on the west side, because of those mountains but east of that maybe up into the Columbia Basin in eastern Washington if day time temps are the indicator verses night time temps.  Those else where can extrapolate from there."

Can you use words for dummies like me.  LOL!!  How about wisconsin?  I have seen a map on the Potential territory of the AHB.  Here is a link.

 http://www.webmountainbike.com/kilbeesonmyt.html

Does this look right to you?  Why cant they just crossbreed and evolve untill they can live anywhere euro bees can survie?  Whats you opinion?  I really hope they cant take the cold and that somehow some gene stays dominant and they die here.  I think they will just borrow the genes they need eventually.
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory

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Offline Bee-Bop

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2009, 10:30:24 am »
The map you posted is outdated, and appears to bee subjective with out verification as to the potential range !

Do a google search; USDA african bee map

Large USDA map in color, showing states & counties infested as of July 2009.

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Offline Brian D. Bray

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Re: how AHB take over our honeybee hives
« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2009, 12:02:02 am »
Brian, you lost me.   

"I place the demarcation line about Sisque Mountains in Southren Oregan on the west side, because of those mountains but east of that maybe up into the Columbia Basin in eastern Washington if day time temps are the indicator verses night time temps.  Those else where can extrapolate from there."

Can you use words for dummies like me.  LOL!!  How about wisconsin?  I have seen a map on the Potential territory of the AHB.  Here is a link.

 http://www.webmountainbike.com/kilbeesonmyt.html

Does this look right to you?  Why cant they just crossbreed and evolve untill they can live anywhere euro bees can survie?  Whats you opinion?  I really hope they cant take the cold and that somehow some gene stays dominant and they die here.  I think they will just borrow the genes they need eventually.


The map looks like a pretty good SWAG* as to the probable demarcation line for AHB.  IMO, the western brown line should not be any higher on the map the the California-Oregon boarder as the Sisque Mountains pretty much splits the 2 states.  I think the heighth of the mountains, along with its northern latitude, means the AHB won't cross north of the Sisques unless hand carried.

*SWAG = Scientific Wild A$$ Guess
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