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Author Topic: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....  (Read 32221 times)

Offline tecumseh

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #40 on: November 10, 2010, 08:10:17 am »
curious read..

mr bush writes:
I am always interested in hearing peoples observations.  I prefer they be classified as "their observations" as opposed to known "facts".  I certainly don't believe everything that the researchers say, the books say or other beekeepers observe, but I like to organize those things and compare them to my observations. 

tecumseh:
vert well stated mr bush.  and I will add....in almost all occasion the context of the situation has a lot to do with the observation.  so what might be 'a fact' in one situation is 'in fact' incorrect when the context changes.

it is always a pleasure to read anything by my childhood beekeeping hero Jay Miller.
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Offline Culley

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #41 on: November 14, 2010, 02:52:00 am »
Just wanted to say thanks deknow, those videos are very interesting. Also found the videos of Dee Lusby's operation (google video?) very interesting.
I got The Complete Idiots Guide To Beekeeping from the library. Nice book, treatment free emphasis is impressive, it's a bit more general than what I was after.

Offline Michael Bush

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #42 on: November 14, 2010, 10:03:52 pm »
One of the problems in giving beekeeping advice is that we beekeepers tend to give advice based on our system of beekeeping. In other words the advice, by our experience, works in our system of beekeeping. The problem is that this assumes that it will work just as well out of that context and in the context of someone else's system. Sometimes it does. But often it does not.  Then there is the context of the time of year, the stage of buildup of the colony, the flow or lack of it, all of which change the outcomes.
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Offline bee-nuts

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #43 on: November 15, 2010, 01:23:07 am »
      I read in ABJ about 2 years ago it is not uncommon to find drones up to 35 miles away from the parent hive in a hive raising a raising a queen(s)  :? as this a fact or a myth :?




     BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

I dont doubt that the 35 miles or farther from a drones mother colony is truth.  This also would help explain how AHB could move so fast on its way north from south america.  Flying five miles a day staying as a guest sure makes it possible.  This trait would also explain why a colony would benifit from raising as many drones as possible when resources allow.  The more prosperous a colony the more widespread its genetics would be. 

Just a thought I wanted to share.
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-nuts

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #44 on: November 15, 2010, 03:16:07 am »
DEKNOW

Thanks also for the link to videos of good beekeeping discussion.

In the first video discussion with Randy quinn it is mentioned that the Italians may have developed the bee we now call Italians from AHB.  Is this just speculation or is there some actual fact that goes along with this idea?  If anyone knows of an article or any published info on this subject please post it.  A long time ago I mentioned in a thread that it seemed very strange that AHB have moved so rapidly on this side of the globe and not on the other side.  I myself think that Apis mellifera adansonii must have had influence outside of the continent of Africa on their side of the globe in decades past and in present.  You cant tell me they do not arive via cargo ships and other means of transport in italy and other areas.  That said their has to be an explanation for how fast they spread and dominated south america and south-north america.  Climate must be the main factor?  Randy also stated something about switching (or something to that affect) to the dark bee to help solve the ahb hybridization problem.  I sure wish he would have elaborated on that subject more.

And last but not least as the discussion of beekeepers whether they be an author of a book, be a scientist, a queen breeder or what have you, when they discuss their opinions they belive as fact, back them up with theory, observation, rationale, math or whatever they belive proves their belief, I belive Thomas Jefferson sums it up best:

"The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory"

Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory

Thomas Jefferson

Offline tecumseh

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #45 on: November 17, 2010, 08:17:35 am »
bee nut writes:
In the first video discussion with Randy quinn it is mentioned that the Italians may have developed the bee we now call Italians from AHB.  Is this just speculation or is there some actual fact that goes along with this idea?
... That said their has to be an explanation for how fast they spread and dominated south america and south-north america.  Climate must be the main factor?

tecumseh:
not that long ago we though (speculated) that the origin of the european honey bee was from the SE Asian area (that is where the greatest variety of social insect reside).  with the bee genome project we now know that the european bee originated from Africa (likely in three waves).

how fast a species spreads is somewhat determine by the niche it moves into.  thus the saying 'mother nature hates a vacume'.

michael bush writes:
One of the problems in giving beekeeping advice is that we beekeepers tend to give advice based on our system of beekeeping.

tecumseh:
and quite often times based only on one geographical location.  beekeeping is beekeeping, but it ain't always the same (my experience says it is never exactly the same) from location to location.
I am 'the panther that passes in the night'... tecumseh.

Offline TwT

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #46 on: November 19, 2010, 04:02:48 pm »
I was talking to my good friend Dwight Porter the other day, he said he seen a couple times this year a queen leave the hive on her mating flight and return between 15-20 minutes, she would need a jet pack on her to fligh 6 miles in that amount of time  ;)
THAT's ME TO THE LEFT JUST 5 MONTHS FROM NOW!!!!!!!!

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Offline Jim134

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #47 on: November 19, 2010, 05:03:48 pm »
I was talking to my good friend Dwight Porter the other day, he said he seen a couple times this year a queen leave the hive on her mating flight and return between 15-20 minutes, she would need a jet pack on her to fligh 6 miles in that amount of time  ;)


 
   TWT .............
 
A worker bee fly at about 12 miles per hr.


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Offline don2

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #48 on: November 26, 2010, 02:27:45 pm »
I want one of those Queen Bee Trackers. I want to know how far my Queens go. :roll: :roll:

I agree with MB 100%. Location, season, conditions, etc.

What I read in any book is not fact to me. What I can see and touch may be. If there are no Magicians around. ;) :)
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Offline AllenF

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #49 on: November 27, 2010, 08:55:00 pm »
I want one of those Queen Bee Trackers. I want to know how far my Queens go. :roll: :roll:


Is there an app for that for my phone?

Offline cam

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #50 on: November 28, 2010, 07:48:45 am »
I was talking to my good friend Dwight Porter the other day, he said he seen a couple times this year a queen leave the hive on her mating flight and return between 15-20 minutes, she would need a jet pack on her to fligh 6 miles in that amount of time  ;)

Although I've never seen it, there are credible reports of queens breeding right in the yard. 500' or so.
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Offline WPG

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #51 on: December 01, 2010, 02:47:22 am »

a few things that you should know about queens mating...

* a queen can determine her own drones in the mating process.
     If so can't the drones determine their own hive mates?

 She has been programmed over the eons to fly out to the nearest DCA, and mate with the drones available.
Hasn't she really been programed to fly pastthe nearest DCA and then mate with the drones available?


..... they can recognize bees from their own colony. But they have no clue that they are all cousins from the same grandmother. So the queen flies out and mates with drones from these ten hives. She knows which drones came from her hive. That has been proven in studies. But what she does not know is that she is mating with drones from 9 hives with son's from her identical sister's hives.
To be 'identical sisters' they would have to have the same queen mother and the same single drone father.
 Very unlikely.


We all assume that inbreeding happens when the queen mates with her own drones. And that can happen in drastic situations.
Surely you're not suggesting that an unmated queen lays some drone eggs, waits for them to hatch, then flies to the nearest DCA where they would most likey be to finally mate?
 And some suggest the queen sometimes just gets overwhelmed.
Her brother hive mates ?  are so overcome with lust that they can't tell the virgin is their sister?
 Why then wouldn't drones try to mate iin the hive with a virgin?

I have never known a mated queen that starts to lay to evermate again, nor have I ever heard anyone else claim that they do,. So a queen would never mate with her own offspring.
Artificially inseminating queens is to produce breeder queens, not production queens, so the daughters would be open mated with multible drones and therefore have vast diversity in the hives.

Unless a beekeeper marks each drone indentifying which hive it was born in they have no clue that any of the drones are even from their own apiary.

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Offline BjornBee

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #52 on: December 01, 2010, 08:39:11 am »
I was talking to my good friend Dwight Porter the other day, he said he seen a couple times this year a queen leave the hive on her mating flight and return between 15-20 minutes, she would need a jet pack on her to fligh 6 miles in that amount of time  ;)

Although I've never seen it, there are credible reports of queens breeding right in the yard. 500' or so.

I've seen it also. Although there seems to be a many who for some reason keep suggesting that queens fly out past several DCA's to mate. I guess we can chalk that up to urban legend and repeated book filler. Certainly not anything an observant beekeeper would actually experience as if this was a golden cast in stone certainty.

I have searched extensively for the portion about queens knowing about their own drones. (For WPG - lets make it clear that that means drones from the SAME colony) and have found nothing. As I stated earlier, if I come across anything, I will post it. I have also talked to three entomologists I respect very much (None from Pennsylvania  :roll: ) and all state that they have never heard of anything about queens knowing her own drones. (Again, for WPG...that means from her own colony) So maybe I read something late at night and was wrong, or was reading a paper with many sources and read some bad worded comments. I don't know.

As for WPG,

Lets talk your comments one at a time.... lets talk identical sisters....

If I graft 10 queens from the same comb of eggs, all laying next to each other, what is your guess that each would be the same?  Are you suggesting that all 10 would be not identical sisters due to what? All sperm being different? Or are you adding in the genetic makeup of the queens eggs also prior to fertilization? Yes, it would be a stretch, but my loose play in wording should be taking for the message behind the wording and perhaps not so much as something to be nitpicked. The comments were in regards to inbreeding, which has less to do with being identical, and lots to do with "like" genetic material, or the pitfalls associated with having like genetic material and less genetic diversity.

If your questioning my comments, I would like to know with what data and experience you are putting on the table. Making statements into questions like "Hasn't she really been programmed to fly past the nearest DCA...." does not cut it. Are you implying your ignorance on the matter and asking a honest question or are you making a statement with wiggle room later? I state that she is not programmed to fly past DCA's. The normal and natural makeup of colonies would allow a variation of genetic material to be available. It is when we saturate or overload this natural setting, do we have problems. I think some are seeing what makes sense to think queens must do in regards to how we keep bees, and what bees do in the natural world, where the next colony may be 1/2 mile away and so on.

I suggest, that having identical sisters is not that far fetched. One of the suggested advantages of a/I is that the beekeeper "blends" all the semen. But does the queen do that? Or have you ever seen a queen lay all dark bees for awhile, then change over to another color, and so on. I know I have.

Without proper record keeping and DNA verification, I guess we will never know. The spirit behind my comments was that ten installed packages or ten queen all grafted off the same comb, may see genetics close enough to consider inbreeding a problem when we have unnatural circumstances of high numbers of colonies in one area, and possibly from the same breeder or grafted frame. Your cousin may not be identical either, but with your thought process, mating with cousins is fine and dandy and I guess in your world, the best breeding program you can achieve.

As for the rest, You make claims of word play while saying "Surely your not suggesting" which usually translates into pure jabbing for argument sake, or lack of comprehension of what was being stated.

You seem to focus on your understanding of my comments in regards to thinking I stated that virgin queens lay drones, wait for them to hatch and then go out and mate with her own drones. I'll pass on the needless debate and senseless crap, and realize that for most others, they understood I was suggesting that I meant a virgin and the drones from the very colony that she came from. I guess some may be too intellectual for commonsense to be apparent.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2010, 09:04:22 am by BjornBee »
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Offline BjornBee

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #53 on: December 01, 2010, 08:46:35 am »
I was talking to my good friend Dwight Porter the other day, he said he seen a couple times this year a queen leave the hive on her mating flight and return between 15-20 minutes, she would need a jet pack on her to fligh 6 miles in that amount of time  ;)


 
   TWT .............
 
a worker bee fly at about 12 miles per hr.


   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
 

Ok, Jim.....curiousity killed the cat. I've thought about this long enough.

What does the worker flying 12 miles an hour have to do with queen mating?  :-D

BTW, How does that compare to the drone and queen?

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Offline bee-nuts

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #54 on: December 02, 2010, 03:49:02 am »
I am not a bee expert or a queen rearing guy but I have to say that I think evolution would would favor preventing inbreeding not by programing the queen to fly great distance which would have many disadvantages, but for drones to do all the leg work by traveling all over the place as guests where ever they show up.  It only make sense.  Queens that fly 6 miles would be at greater risk to predators, weather hazards, and a lot of wasted time for one mating flight.  If you were a queen, why would you fly past a local drone congregation area that has drones that may be from 35 miles or farther to accomplish the same thing by risking your life and wasting your short mating window flying across the county.

To me the answer to this whole question is why did evolution allow drones to be guests everywhere? 

To minimize mating risks, and inbreeding?  Seems logical to me!
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Offline Jim134

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #55 on: December 02, 2010, 09:15:34 am »
I was talking to my good friend Dwight Porter the other day, he said he seen a couple times this year a queen leave the hive on her mating flight and return between 15-20 minutes, she would need a jet pack on her to fligh 6 miles in that amount of time  ;)


 
   TWT .............
 
a worker bee fly at about 12 miles per hr.


   BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
 

Ok, Jim.....curiousity killed the cat. I've thought about this long enough.

What does the worker flying 12 miles an hour have to do with queen mating?  :-D

BTW, How does that compare to the drone and queen?



BjornBee....

Do you know how fasts a queen or drone can fly  ???


    BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
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Offline WPG

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #56 on: December 02, 2010, 05:24:33 pm »
.... I have also talked to three entomologists I respect very much (None from Pennsylvania  :roll: ) and all state that they have never heard of anything about queens knowing her own drones. (Again, for WPG...that means from her own colony).


Hi BB,
 If you knew there is no info about queens recognizing their hive-mate drones why did you state in your thread-starting post that it was a fact?
 I don't really need a response from you.
I was just trying to point out that others were misunderstanding whatever it was you were trying to put out.
 I didn't pick on each and every blanket statement you made and you didn't respond to all of mine.  No problem.

There are always exceptions  to the rule. Some people think the exceptions are the rule.

You obviously have vast experience and the time now to type away.

I don't have that much extra time to waste on 'endless debate and senseless crap'
as you say, but you do make yourself an easy target, and I like to poke a bully in the nose once in awhile.

Too many newbees on here for everyone to be able to pick the clean kernels of knowledge from the debris.   

I most likely will stick to threads without as much chaff as yours, so good-bye and have fun, hope I haven't been too mean.
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Offline AR Beekeeper

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #57 on: December 02, 2010, 06:10:10 pm »
I will have to agree with BjornBee about the queen's recognizing drones from her colony.  I read the information in one of the bee magazines about 3 years ago.  I can't remember if it was in one of the issues that have the research papers condensed or if it was in one of the articles by the Traynors.  If bees recognize and show a preferance for larvae from their own colony when making emergency emergency queen cells, why should they not recognize their own drones?

Offline BjornBee

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #58 on: December 02, 2010, 06:45:53 pm »
I will have to agree with BjornBee about the queen's recognizing drones from her colony.  I read the information in one of the bee magazines about 3 years ago.  I can't remember if it was in one of the issues that have the research papers condensed or if it was in one of the articles by the Traynors.  If bees recognize and show a preferance for larvae from their own colony when making emergency emergency queen cells, why should they not recognize their own drones?

Oh boy.....just when some would call me a liar or think I was making the whole thing up.  :roll:

I thought I read it somewhere. But can not find anything sitting around, although I have not paged through years of bee magazines. Just when I was going to call it a dead issue, now someone else recalls reading such information. I surely hope your not yankin my chain.  ;) I could of sworn I read something about it, but starting doubting myself. Now I'll have to look a little harder.

Hmmm.....hopefully someone will find something.

Thanks AR beekeeper.



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Offline WPG

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Re: Queen mating fact, myth, or unknown....
« Reply #59 on: December 02, 2010, 09:35:38 pm »
It is difficult to speak fast enough to keep up with ones thoughts sometimes, but typing is excruciating when there is so much to discuss.

  No one is calling you a liar BB.
Past your prime-maybe.
Forgot more than the rest of us will ever hope to learn-most likely.
Confused-yep. :-D

We do agree that drones go where they want, when they want, and no bee challenges them.  Right?  They are even fed & coddled, until the fall of course.
So the bees don't even care where they came from, let alone try to recognise them, because it doesn't matter to them.
 If a drone happens to come back to the same hive 2 days in a row it may pick up the hive scent enough to smell like it is at its 'home hive' but that's all.
If you trapped and marked each drone as they hatched in each hive before they left the first time one could tell if a drone is actually 'home'.
Say just 5 hives in a separate apiary. Each hive marked with a different queen marking pen. Did this for a few weeks, killing any outside unmarked drones. Then doing the drone comb varroa control technique, and letting everything  go free flight.
How long would it take for 'foriegn drones' to move in?
Has anyone actually done this?
Please tell us the results.
Of course, to be 'believed' it would have to be a controlled scientific, peer reviewed, accepted, published study that we could look up ourselves.
Might be fun to try anyway sometime.

But anyway it doesn't matter if the drones that were in the hive when the queen hatched out are recognised by her on her mating flight. The odds that one of them is in the part of the DCA she is when she mates is slim.

 
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