Drone genetics.

[Greengage]

I know im aleways out of my depth when it comes to genetics, But I was at a talk last night on pests and diseases and the chat came up about a project in Cork Irealand, to identify the different sex alleles in drones , so that in the future Irish beekeepers can select for sex alleles to improve the genetic viability of their honeybee stocks. The aim is to eventually have a nationwide data base covering all of Ireland so that if a beekeeper needs to introduce new genetics into their stocks then they can select from the database to improve the overall bee-health in their bees. it would appear from my understanding that there are a lot of drones flying about who are fireing blanks due to diseases (Viral) caused by high varrora loads. Anyway have a read I would be curious to know what you people think.
http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/index.php/about-us/education/bee-health/current-beehealth-issues/bee-research-project

[Jon]

GG
I think this project is complete nonsense and I kept getting my facebook posts on the subject deleted when I pointed out the reasons why.
A single queen which mates with a reasonable number of drones could potentially carry every known sex allele in her spermatheca. There are thought to be around 18-20 sex alleles although I read a fairly recent paper which claimed that there are more.
The idea that there will be a restricted number of sex alleles in the open mating Irish bee population when we allow imports and have several thousand beekeepers is ridiculous.
The idea that the distribution of sex alleles is static and is information which can be maintained on a data base is also daft.
Andrew Abrahams has kept a population of just 60 colonies on Colonsay with new new arrivals for over 30 years and when his bees were surveyed recently he had lost no sex alleles at all from his limited island population in the previous survey 10 years prior.

[Greengage]

Someone better tell CIT Cork as they already have a Phd student in place and there is 20K being collected from beekeepers to further the study actually they need 15K as they have some and a target audience for the remainder.. There is too much politics for me and people trying to lay their stamp on beekeeping for their own reasons. Interesting what you say ill research more and see what I come up with. But as they say on Dragons Den.
For this reason I am out (See Jons post above.)

[Jon]

Too much politics is exactly the problem with this project. All politics and erroneous science and assumptions.
Even if the funding is raised there is absolutely nothing to be learned as we already know the answer which is: The island of Ireland has a well distributed and full compliment of sex alleles in its honeybee population.

You don't need 20k to work that out as we have thousands of bee colonies and continuous imports onto the island so there is no way sex alleles are being lost.

[Greengage]

I dont think I should be hanging out with you people on here, yous will only get me in more trouble than I already am in. :)
very interesting chats though. thanks for the info, ill see what happens when I propose we give no money.

[Jon]

I think I have already been blackballed for questioning the logic (or lack of it) behind this project.

[Greengage]

This project is published on the FIBKA web site and the impression is given that it is a FIBKA project, it even uses FIBKA Bee health officers email address to promote it. I checked out Tom Seeleys research on A survivor population of wild colonies of European honeybees in the northeastern United States: investigating its genetic structure. it appears if my understanding is correct to have been derived from a few surviving queens from this he said there are sufficient diversity to maintain populations into the future. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-015-0355-0
He will be in Tullamore Co Offaly this Sunday for a chat if people are interested. So where are they going with this reserach in Cork. I think I will contact my local FIBKA council rep and see whats going on. No point in flushing good money down the drain if it could be channeled elsewhere.
If I remember correctly the discussion at NIHBS conferance last year in Athlone the chap from the dept of Ag said that future funding would only be considered if it included a significent scientific element and there only two large groups like FIBKA or NIHBS who are recogonised could have support from them or access to fundiing. Someone is going on a solo run here, I sense a schism or good row brewing.

[The Drone Ranger]

Some things have a ring of truth though
I've had to replace many more queens this year just not good doers
Chalk brood showed up and those queens were replaced
Last year blue queens had some issues good few replaced
Year before green queens were better (still got one thats v.g.)
I think it could be drone related but not to do with sex allels
This winter I'm making sure to get varroa by vapourising not drizzling the nucs
And next year I'll put drone comb in the best hives to stop drones being raised in sub optimal positions where they are vulnerable

I might be a victim of apophenia lol!
The study might be a victim of this taken from Wikipedia

Overfitting

In*statistics*and*machine learning, apophenia is an example of what is known as*overfitting. Overfitting occurs when a statistical model fits the noise rather than the signal. The model overfits the particular data or observations rather than fitting a generalizable pattern in a general population.




Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[Jon]

I rear several hundred queens every year and I requeen my own stock with the same grafted stock as the queens I am selling.
I am not seeing problems with mating either this year or last year.
There was a 4 week period of bad weather this year between 10 June and 7 July where very few queens mated but most of them did mate eventually and I only saw a couple of drone layers.
I heard a while back that one of the major beekeepers in Cork who had 70% losses had skipped the autumn mite treatment last year so that is a more likely explanation for the losses rather than any talk about inbreeding.

[Jon]

He will be in Tullamore Co Offaly this Sunday for a chat if people are interested.

It's Randy Oliver who is coming to Tollamore not Tom Seeley

[busybeephilip]

Hi DR, .... chalkbrood, i experienced the same thing in some colonies that that have always been clear, requeened the worst but with the others the chalk disappeared as quick as it arrived. I reckon the bad weather causing constant dampness was the underlying cause


re Stats and sex alleles in a closed population (thinking of colonsay), With 50 hives with a 12 sex allele population it would theoretically take 30 years to loose 2 alleles resulting in negligible brood variation (T.E. Rinder, Bee genetics and breeding, 1986, pp249) The amount of inbreeding or numbers of sex alleles can be simply estimated by estimating the numbers of eggs that fail to hatch eg 2 sex alleles gives 50% failure, 3 = 33%, 4 = 25%, 5 = 20%, 6 = 17%, 7 = 14%, 8 = 12%, 9 = 11%, 10 = 10%, 11 = 9%, 12 = 8%, 14 = 7% This is a rough estimate, you must use open unsealed brood 70 hour old to count ie patches of larvae all the same age, not sealed brood, and does not take into account whether sperm is well mixed in the queens spermatheca. Use a cut out card to isolate 100 cells and count the empties including both pollen and nectar. (Ref S. Taber, Breeding super bees, 1987 ) you should not pick the best area of the comb.

queen viability - if you count 10 out of 100 unoccupied cells the viability = 90% .... simples. The recommended "good viability" should be 93 - 95% and is what you would expect from any queen bought from a competent queen breeder

So lets get counting !

[Jon]

I have to admit I was surprised when Andrew said he had lost no sex alleles in a 60 colony closed population after a 10 year interval but his bees are analysed all the time by various European research projects so there is no reason to doubt this.
Bee genetics is set up to outcross and maximise genetic diversity due to the multiple patrilines in every colony.
Loss of sex alleles is only going to be a problem in a small closed island population and if Andrew has managed 30 years on Colonsay without problems I think all this talk about inbreeding and lack of sex alleles is well overegged.
I guess if one person was producing thousands of II daughters from a single breeder queen it could become an issue but noone in the British Isles is doing that.

[Greengage]

I see FIBKA are running the story on their facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/fibka/?notif_t=notify_me_page&notif_id=1474013498377008
maybe you should write an article for four seasons or on the NIHBS web page. Its getting legs.

[Jon]

I have no gripe with Fibka. It looks to me like the plan is to raise the funding privately and this may well be the stumbling block.
I spent years chasing funding for a charity I worked for and step one before seeking funding was always to demonstrate that there is a problem which can to be fixed by the funds raised.
There is no evidence at all to suggest that any Irish bee losses last winter were anything to do with inbreeding or a restricted number of sex alleles.
There is no problem needs fixing here.
The pattern I see most often is that certain beekeepers tend to lose most of their bees whereas others don't, ie, it is a management issue.
Anyone who takes liberties with varroa treatment can run into problems as well.

[mbc]

Anyone who takes liberties with varroa treatment can run into problems as well.

Ain't this the truth!

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Phillip I'm thinking about getting one of those Lasi queens and doing a chalkbrood test to see if hygiene can fix it
I usually just burn all the bad combs and mummies
I tried the cedar oil treatment which stimulated increased removal of mummies but as soon as the new brood capped it was back
Eric McArthur had a theory about Formic acid and feeding
So went with half a MAQS strip and heavy feeding
That got all the mummies out and then requeened
Jury still out on that one
Shook all the bees in another onto fresh foundation
Heavy feeding till wax drawn then requeeened
Got them off mesh floor and onto solid one sloping forward
Likewise jury still out on that one

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[Jon]

If you have the energy to read through this thread from 2010 (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?301-Yet-another-puzzle&highlight=locus), you will see the false assumptions which are being made with regard to this Cork based project.

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi Jon
Didn't make it to the end sorry
Did clip this though

We learned at the BIBBA conference from Jacob Kahn that bees seem to be making a deliberate selection when choosing a larva to develop into a queen. If I understood him correctly he had studied a population and found that the distribution of traits in one generation did not follow the mathematical probability distribution that could have been predicted from the previous generation. This suggested to him that the bees are skewing the results by selecting certain larvae over others. If this is possible, presumably they could be capable of manipulating the csd allele population similarly. For example they might be attracted to larvae carrying different csd alleles to themselves.

Jacob Kahn's observations made me wonder if we should develop queen rearing systems that afforded the bees some degree of choice rather than foisting our chosen grafts onto them. It would not surprise me if they were capable of making better choices than us. I just choose the larvae that seem to be about the right size so it would not be difficult for the bees to make a better fist of it than me.

Rosie

I miss Steve Rose posts what has happened to him ?

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[gavin]

Hi Jon
Didn't make it to the end sorry
Did clip this though

[snip]



Hope you made it as far as the Ivor Cutler YouTube link!

[Jon]

I will forever associate Eric with Ivor Cutler since that epic thread.
It seems to me that every few years someone rises up and decides without any evidence that we have an inbreeding problem with our bees but I honestly don't see how that can be the case given the colony density, the movement of bees within the UK and the regular import of queens.
Similar situation in Ireland.
I would put inbreeding pretty near the bottom of the list of challenges to our bees.
Varroa, Virus, lack of forage due to agricultural practices would be far bigger threats
Even when I saturate mating sites with black drones I still have the odd queen manages to produce some yellow banded workers.
The bee mating system is set up to maximise genetic diversity and the challenge (for me) is to try and reduce that to keep the matings within subspecies.
Drones can cover great distances.

[prakel]

Hi Jon
Didn't make it to the end sorry
Did clip this though

We learned at the BIBBA conference from Jacob Kahn that bees seem to be making a deliberate selection when choosing a larva to develop into a queen.......

Kahn's observations made me wonder if we should develop queen rearing systems that afforded the bees some degree of choice rather than foisting our chosen grafts onto them. It would not surprise me if they were capable of making better choices than us. I just choose the larvae that seem to be about the right size so it would not be difficult for the bees to make a better fist of it than me.

Echos of the Moritz 'Royal Families' paper:

Rare royal families in honeybees, Apis mellifera 2005; Moritz et al
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjKw4r4u57PAhVkYpoKHbAVAx0QFggcMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.researchgate.net%2Fpublicati on%2F7610474_Rare_royal_families_in_honeybees_Apis _mellifera&usg=AFQjCNFCB8eAjTIUUaGy7rAN-ZqqQwOHbw&sig2=oAnGVcFW16CInP76ESipyw&bvm=bv.133178914,d.bGs

The idea of allowing some degree of self selection is quite alluring and I have given it a fair bit of thought over the last couple of years but I've yet to work out a fair compromise between allowing them to choose for themselves and having easily managable cells to use -I reckon that the Miller method probably comes the closest and we have revisited the method a couple of times this year but for anyone working on a large scale I can't see it ever being a practical option.

[Jon]

If the least frequent sub families are more likely to be chosen as potential queens I wonder what happens with the typical grafting process where the grafts are offered to a cell raising colony which is unrelated to the queen the grafts were taken from.

[prakel]

If the least frequent sub families are more likely to be chosen as potential queens I wonder what happens with the typical grafting process where the grafts are offered to a cell raising colony which is unrelated to the queen the grafts were taken from.

It would be interesting to know if totally unrelated bees, given free choice of larvae from a few combs, would still choose larvae from the same sub families as it's suggested that the related bees would preferentially target.

[Jon]

My guess would be that they would show no preference - but who knows until some serious research is carried out. As DR suggested above there may be factors in play which favor the selection of the least common patrilines but that is not going to happen if the grafts are offered to an unrelated cell starter colony.

[The Drone Ranger]

-I reckon that the Miller method probably comes the closest and we have revisited the method a couple of times this year but for anyone working on a large scale I can't see it ever being a practical option.
Snelgrove board, but don't do a second door switch and just harvest the extra queen cells ?

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[prakel]

As DR suggested above there may be factors in play which favor the selection of the least common patrilines but that is not going to happen if the grafts are offered to an unrelated cell starter colony.

This was the point that Steve Rose was making in the old post that DR quoted and something which, since reading the Moritz paper, I find hard to totally ignore. Even if the grafts are given to related bees they're still likely to accept all of them irrespective of sub-family (or whatever percentage the operator usually averages) because of the state the receiving bees have been put in and the simple fact that the cells have already been started.

If this is truly a major selection tool used in nature then there are a lot of as yet unasked questions.

[prakel]

Snelgrove board, but don't do a second door switch and just harvest the extra queen cells ?

The stumbling block for me has been getting cells which are easily accessible; the Miller method is probably the extreme limit of my patience, cutting totally random cells from assorted combs would be a step too far! As for lifting md brood chambers onto the top of hives and then opening and closing doors....

[gavin]

That Moritz paper provides a strong justification for grafting. If you are interested in selecting better bees then naturally produced queen cells may be of genotypes very rare in the colony, ie daughter cells are possibly not like the mother colony. If you are grafting then there is a greater likelihood that your new queen cells are of a genotype that is representative of the colony from which they came. So you are more likely to get daughters that continue to have the characteristics shown in the mother colony.

[prakel]

Pretty much the same conclusion can be reached from the description of Kahn's observations.

Presumably the use of drone saturation techniques could also be used to control these minor subfamilies. I suppose it depends to some extent whether we want to guide the bees or follow them -and we're all going to have our own perfectly valid reasons for doing one or the other.

[The Drone Ranger]

That's worth thinking about maybe grafting can be better
Simple methods like snelgrove boards are good if you want a new queen from each of your hives
Grafting can tempt you into raising a lot of queens from one favourite hive
You don't really know how that will turn out till the following season
I think it might be best to graft with a few mother queens to hedge your bets
I suppose if we left it all up to the bees we might be back to the days of hives unable to deal with wax moth and carbolic cloths :)


Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[prakel]

I suppose if we left it all up to the bees we might be back to the days of hives unable to deal with wax moth and carbolic cloths :)

Can modern bees deal with carbolic cloths?

[The Drone Ranger]

for the folk interested in say AMM breeding from a pure queen there might be a good reason to let the bees select as they will be likely to choose a larva with royal lineage rather than some distant relation with next to no royal hemolymph in her

[Jon]

And don't forget this paper (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-013-0212-y) which suggests that there is selection going on between subspecies during mating flights.

[The Drone Ranger]

And don't forget this paper (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-013-0212-y) which suggests that there is selection going on between subspecies during mating flights.

I like it as an explanation of how its possible to raise the bees you want in a hybridised area
Still think its a bit of a challenge though

[Jon]

Damn right it is a challenge!
Just got a new site in a remote bee free area at 1000 feet so will be curious to see how the queens mate up there.

[Greengage]

If you have the energy to read through this thread from 2010 (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?301-Yet-another-puzzle&highlight=locus), you will see the false assumptions which are being made with regard to this Cork based project. jeez it took me two days to read all that my head is melted, Iam now convinced I know nothing about genetics. Note to oneself do not get involved in a discussion when you are out of your depth. When you weed out the slagging there was lots of interesting discussion thanks for the link.

[gavin]

Regarding the slagging off, you might be interested to know that Eric and myself had a most agreeable lunch together at the recent SBA Convention in Elgin. He was on good form. After Tom Seeley's talk on home-finding in swarms, with tales of the 'difficult' resident on the island he was using, his chimney and the changed colour of scouts on a swarm he was watching, Eric came out with a great quip in the queue for lunch. 'Why do swarms like chimneys?' 'Because it soots them!'

It is a pity that YouTube took down the second Ivor Cutler video (on the instructions of a relative of his apparently). It was 'When the river bends', a song that warns of the dookings you might get if you don't pay attention to bends in the road ahead. Never assume the road is simply straight ahead.

[Greengage]

Good to hear. We are all adults and different opinions are also good to hear.

[Greengage]

Looks like FIBKA facebook page has unfriended me for questioning the project, so now we play???

[prakel]

Looks like FIBKA facebook page has unfriended me for questioning the project, so now we play???

You're better off out of it. Let them do their research, the results may even be valid for the best part of one season, meanwhile there's plenty of positive stuff in beekeeping to keep you occupied...

[Greengage]

No I dont agree, It is trending on all media platforms run by FIBKA and supported by Cork Institute of Technology although there is nothing on their website about it. I will e-mail them to see what is happening there. The project is looking to raise 20K through FIBKA members, that i have a problem with, if it is so worthwhile a project why not stump up the money and get everyone involved, similar to the project on DNA run by NUIG Galway. you can read more about the project on Bee Health here
http://www.irishbeekeeping.ie/index.php/about-us/education/bee-health/current-beehealth-issues/bee-research-project

Anyway it says Winter losses in the Ireland area are reported as being higher than ever in certain parts with certain parts of Cork and Kerry as being in the region of 50-70%. The mild winter of 2014/15 and the bad summer in 2015 are mainly the cause. where is the proof of this it could have been starvation or beekeepers not treating their bees. maybe for statistics more people in that region submitted data than people on the east coast.

The rain effected the queens mating and lack of pollen and high varroa loads meant that the queens that mated early in the year mated with sterile drones, is there a scientific paper to say drones were sterile?

"Unlike taking a cow to a bull where you have a good idea what the quality of the breed will be if the cow reproduces, the queen in her first twenty one days of life heads off to a drone congregation area and mates on the wing with about twenty different drones." its not that simple and you cannot compare cows to bees .

"The rain and lack of pollen from August until mid-October meant there were very little drones available for the newly emerged queens to mate with and those they did mate with were too closely related to themselves, which means the brood pattern the queens are now producing is unviable and spotty" I still have hives bursting with bees and still bringing in pollen from Ivy.

"Cork Institute of Technology have stepped up to the plate and agreed to set up a research project to run in the newly built CREATE building to sample the Irish stocks , identify the different sex alleles , so that in the future Irish beekeepers can select for sex alleles to improve the genetic viability of their honeybee stocks." says who. Anyway the fact that someone banned me from the page really annnoys me, it has 3k followers and nobody is allowed comment. Looks like to me someone has thought up a question found an answer now need to fill in the middle bits to agree with it.

[prakel]

No I dont agree

Each to their own :) and yes, I did read the links before replying!

[Greengage]

Read this interesting article from Randy Oliver. http://scientificbeekeeping.com/whats-happening-to-the-bees-part-4-the-genetic-consequences-of-domestication/

[The Drone Ranger]

http://www.beeculture.com/catch-buzz-scientists-shown-drone-can-leave-behind-virus-may-infect-queen-disease-deformed-wing-virus-queen-dies-colony/
You can see DWV without varroa present but it is one of the main vectors
Still referencing the dubious CCD but just ignore that bit

Regards the Randy Oliver stuff the idea that our bees are inferior to the bees of yesteryear is nonsense if applied to us in the UK
I don't know what goes on in the USA beekeeping world

Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[fatshark]

I'm surprised that got published ... it's been known that DWV was transmissible in drone sperm for ages, though I suspect the original observation was made using II. Scientific Reports, despite being from the same stable as Nature, has an ethos of publishing stuff if it's scientifically correct, not whether it makes a significant contribution to the literature.

PS or perhaps not surprised, considering it's in Scientific Reports. Perhaps I should have said "unsurprised that got published because it's old news".

[The Drone Ranger]

Hi fatshark
Yes not news
The reasons for poor mating are many and varied
They might include some of the more relevant ones in the proposed study
Who knows
The answer is blowing in the wind ?

[fatshark]

The answer is blowing in the wind ?

No one can ever claim that SBAi isn't topical ... ;-)

[Jon]

might be idiot wind though....

[fatshark]

While trying to think of a witty response I remembered that I want you from Blonde on blonde contains the refrain "Honey, I want you" ... which, if SBAi had the function, would make a great .sig

[Greengage]

I'm surprised that got published ... it's been known that DWV was transmissible in drone sperm for ages, though I suspect the original observation was made using II. Scientific Reports, despite being from the same stable as Nature, has an ethos of publishing stuff if it's scientifically correct, not whether it makes a significant contribution to the literature.

PS or perhaps not surprised, considering it's in Scientific Reports. Perhaps I should have said "unsurprised that got published because it's old news".
why were you suprised that was published.

[fatshark]

As I indicated ... because I don't think the result was new. It's been known that DWV is transmitted through mating for some time.

[Greengage]

ok thanks, you guys on here a great for finding papers are there any other viruses passed on from Drones as STDs

[The Drone Ranger]

ok thanks, you guys on here a great for finding papers are there any other viruses passed on from Drones as STDs
Not sure about that GG
I haven't read anything about other virus being transmitted this way

I think it's right to say that a number of brood infections and parasites are spread between worker bees and larva at certain exact stages in their lives (Nosema,acarine,varroa,AFB etc)

In nature when a swarm leaves a hive there is a brood break while the new queen gets mated and while the swarm builds comb

I tend to ramble on about Snelgrove boards I know, but they do represent a way to partially reproduce that effect
The field bees and the queen are one part, meanwhile the brood bees plus the brood raise a new queen and have a brood break


Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[Greengage]

I made a snelgrove board last season (This year) but things got ahead of me so next year I hope to be on top of things and give it a go. Probably drifting drones dont help either. I just cannot get my head around how bee keepers know drones from one hive drift to another they all look the same to me, how do they know " You see that fellow there well he used to be over in hive No1" and another thing I dont know what genes I have myself how am I supposed to know what genes are missing in my bees. Its just too much at times for me. Ah well you live and learn but it will be a slow process.

[prakel]

...and another thing I dont know what genes I have myself how am I supposed to know what genes are missing in my bees. Its just too much at times for me. Ah well you live and learn but it will be a slow process.

There's an interesting project in Ireland which might help, more info here. (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?2324-Drone-genetics)

[fatshark]

I made a snelgrove board last season (This year) but things got ahead of me so next year I hope to be on top of things and give it a go. Probably drifting drones dont help either. I just cannot get my head around how bee keepers know drones from one hive drift to another they all look the same to me, how do they know " You see that fellow there well he used to be over in hive No1" and another thing I dont know what genes I have myself how am I supposed to know what genes are missing in my bees. Its just too much at times for me. Ah well you live and learn but it will be a slow process.

Spend some time practising queen marking using drones as the target ... then check the adjacent hives over the next few days. If you really want to irritate people mark a hundred or so drones in the association apiary using this years colour ... :)

[prakel]

Spend some time practising queen marking using drones as the target ... then check the adjacent hives over the next few days. If you really want to irritate people mark a hundred or so drones in the association apiary using this years colour ... :)

I've been marking drones for a couple of years now and have been quite surprised at how few turn up in other hives -although I still need to get some other people involved to build a better picture.

[Greengage]

There's an interesting project in Ireland which might help, more info here. (http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/showthread.php?2324-Drone-genetics)
Your just being bold now :p im in enough trouble there already. Thats a great idea to mark drones with a different colour and see where they turn up, ill do that next year must add it to my to do list.

[fatshark]

Interesting prakel ... I wonder if the age of the drone influences things? Most drifting amongst workers has been shown to occur during orientation flights i.e. their first few expeditions from the hive, and may reach 1% per day. I've certainly seen marked drones turning up quite regularly in other hives in association apiaries and, for other reasons, am likely to investigate this in a bit more detail next season.

[prakel]

Interesting prakel ... I wonder if the age of the drone influences things? Most drifting amongst workers has been shown to occur during orientation flights i.e. their first few expeditions from the hive, and may reach 1% per day. I've certainly seen marked drones turning up quite regularly in other hives in association apiaries and, for other reasons, am likely to investigate this in a bit more detail next season.

That's a very real possiility I imagine, there is also another aspect which I think probably plays a big role in drifting, but I don't actually have any 'evidence' to back this up so it is just conjecture. It seems quite likely to me that a 'lot' of bees which drift, workers and drones alike, may well do so on a temporary basis. Just because they're in one hive at X-o'clock I'm not at all sure that they won't be back in their own original hive after their next flight. If this is the case then that's possibly quite an important consideration for your specific research.

[fatshark]

That's an easy thing to test ... a few hundred RFID-chipped workers and an array of hives with readers/detectors across their entrances. It would only cost a couple of hundred thousand quid. Alternatively, a couple of POSCA pens and some willing project students willing to watch hive entrances for a few days. That would only cost £10.40 ;)

I think the recent data from Seeley indicates that something like 20-30% of drones are found in hives other than the one they were raised in ...

[Greengage]

In this study it showed that drones drifted more freely than workers,
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00891701/document
they used DNA Microsatellite maternity testing whatever that is as they reckoned labeling tecniquues interfered with bee behaviour. http://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/pdf/1999/05/Apidologie_0044-8435_1999_30_6_ART0005.pdf
I think ill just mark a few from one hive and tell my neighbours to keep a look out for them just to see what happens.

[fatshark]

Microsatellite maternity testing enables the mother of the worker/drone to be determined ... by working out the range present in the hive it tells you how many mothers (queens) they originated from. This wouldn't necessarily help with supporting/refuting the interesting suggestion made by prakel ... for that you'd need to determine, over time, where the bees were and whether they start and end in the hive but go somewhere in between times.

[busybeephilip]

QUOTE<<I think ill just mark a few from one hive and tell my neighbours to keep a look out for them just to see what happens.>>


Greengage - I recall reading somewhere that drones can drift some considerable distance and not just within an apairy like in the region of 10+ km. Nest season I think I'll try marking drones to see if any turn up in my outapairies

[Greengage]

I saw this abstract form a 1958 journal https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-agricultural-science/article/the-drifting-of-honey-bees/88DA09239D5DC14BFA09A6F2BD99DF2F
Most of the bees which drift do so during their orientation flights and before they become regular foragers.

2. Bees emerging in August and September drift less than those emerging earlier in the year.

3. Drifting varies considerably in different circumstances, and may be extensive.

4. Drones drift two to three times as frequently as workers.

5. An individual bee is more likely to drift from a small to a large colony than vice versa, but the greater number of bees flying from the large colonies may result in a net gain in bees by the smaller ones.

6. When hives are arranged in repetitive patterns, bees drift to hives occupying similar positions in the pattern to their own. When hives are arranged in rows, bees from the centre colonies drift more than those at the end, resulting in the latter colonies gaining numerically. In some circumstances, more bees drift to hives in one direction than in the opposite direction.

7. Facing hives in different directions and painting them different colours considerably reduces drifting, the facing of hives in different directions being of the greater significance.
But dont drifting bees also transport pests and diseases. Maybe I should start a new thread on drifting bees.

[The Drone Ranger]

Quick test
Catch and mark 10 workers returning or flying from hive A
put them in hive B in the evening

Catch and mark 10 drones returning or flying from hive A
Put them in hive B in the evening

Late next day check how many are left in hive B

My guess is all the drones none of the workers :)


Sent from my LIFETAB_S1034X using Tapatalk

[Greengage]

Ill let you know hope I remember this.