What is going on here?

[gavin]

OK, here's two things I haven't seen before - both in one colony.

I did the three-in-a-box nucleus thing, perhaps three weeks ago. A double brood colony with a super on top made swarming preparations and was re-arranged with the split (3 partitions) box on top, a special floor, a super, queen excluder then the box with the old marked queen below. The top had a queen cell in each partition.

Today the old marked queen was in the top box, laying away, in the middle partition. There was new queen in one of the other partitions and the third might be queenless. Last weekend the old queen was in the bottom box. And in the bottom box now? That is where she should have been and was there last weekend along with queen cells which I removed. In there was an unmarked laying queen. With queen cells again. Somehow they have exchanged places - or possibly the old queen moved up to the top box (there is a solid floor in the way so must have flown or walked outside) and a new queen from the now queenless split flew and returned to the bottom box. OK, that is possible.

The unmarked queen in the bottom box was on the excluder (the underneath, where it should be) and had this attached to a leg. What is is? The head of a worker?! How come?

G.

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/queen_wth_extras1.jpghttp://www.sbai.org.uk/images/queen_wth_extras1.jpghttp://www.sbai.org.uk/images/queen_with_extras1.jpg

http://www.sbai.org.uk/images/queen_with_extras2.jpg

PS I've just noticed that she has had her antenna pruned as well, poor thing! They've really given her a hard time.

[Mellifera Crofter]

The bee's knees? Could you rescue the poor queen from the macabre trophy on her leg? Do you think some other bees came to her rescue, hence the headless bee - or, rather, bee without a body?

Kitta

[gavin]

Admission time: I don't know where she is now. Certain that I had a good grasp of her and without a suitable container at hand, I headed several yards west to get a nucleus box to put her in. When I got back with it, my tightly clasped fingers were empty. So maybe she flew home, maybe not. The colony was rather exciteable yesterday and tonight another one I need to inspect beat me back. They'll have to wait.

I'd be a bit nervous of picking that off her leg, and I reckon that the colony has already decided that its queen isn't quite right and that they need another.

Might she have managed to sting an attacker and other bees later dismembered the corpse? Or there were two factions amongst the workers, as you suggest. Who knows.

[Neils]

Presumably an antennae that mangled she wouldn't last too long back in a colony in any case?

[Beejud]

I have had a similar experience, in part, a couple of years ago. A marked queen which was definitely in the bottom box of a colony which had been AS'd a few weeks previously disappeared. I thought she had gone and the bottom box was queen less. They were producing queen cells like mad when I next looked. The nuc on the top I was leaving alone because I didn't want to disturb any new virgin queen too soon. When I did open it up, blow me, there was the marked queen happily carrying on as if nothing had happened. After scratching my head and rechecking my hive records I assumed she had come out the bottom box entrance at the front, walked up all the boxes and around and into the top box entrance at the back of the hive. She has been a great queen but they are giving her the boot this year!
Haven't seen anything like your mutant queen with a head between her knees though.

[gavin]

I did wonder if she was a mutant with body parts sprouting where there shouldn't be any, but it looks like a worker rather than a queen head and it just seems too unlikely that she grew it rather than stole it. I really need to find her again!

G.

[Trog]

At least it wasn't her own head tucked underneath 'er arm (cue Stanley Holloway) :)

[Jon]

Virgin queens turn up in unexpected places. Last year one of mine which went missing from a 2 frame mating nuc turned up in a large queenless colony 4 feet away. They must know by hive scent whether it is queenless or not and whether they will be accepted.
A colony at our association apiary swarmed and I was going to use it as a cell raiser. I carefully removed all the queen cells bar one which I intended to remove on inserting the graft frame. However the cell had been torn down and a test frame failed to induce more queen cells indicating a virgin present. It now has a laying queen. The colony next door had swarmed and had several queen cells so I reckon a virgin flew from that and went in next door. There was also a small cast swarm which absconded from a nuc on the same site so it is conceivable that she came from there.

[gavin]

This evening the queen with the extra decoration was nowhere to be seen. Stan Holloway? Long before my time!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTkDGpcWnmU

The colony had lots and lots of sealed queen cells, many of them recently sealed, in places that suggest the bees hadn't planned them in advance, and one with a mature viable virgin ready to hatch. Hopefully their new virgin will calm them somewhat as they were amongst the most cross bees I've handled in recent years. A near neighbour of them was even worse, battering my veil in large numbers. That is the penalty of re-stocking with mixed-up bees where several races have been allowed to cross.

[Adam]

I am sure that last year one queen flew from one hive and went into another and displaced the queen inside.
This year I have one particular nuc with what is now a laying queen. Very dark. The rest of her sisters (grafted stock) are all much lighter coloured. Nearby a mini-nuc absconded and I wonder if the dark queen from the mini-nuc flew into the wrong hive and replaced the imcumbant.

I have dates of emergence for all my queens and it is apparent that how ever old they are, they all tend to start laying at the same time - a couple of decent weather days and they mate. Therfore thay all mate at the same time. Pheromones everywhere. A nuc will be fanning with more nasnov pheromone than a mini-nuc so maybe the queens go to where they get a better scent attraction.

[Adam]

Another aspect I have to check on to do with queen mating is this. If I have a bunch of queens that mate and lay and some don't lay at the same time but, say a week later are these later queens going to be poorly mated ones or drone layers?

[Jon]

I think there are a lot of variables involved and i have observed exactly the same as you. No matter when the queens emerge they all tend to take the mating flight on the first decent day assuming they are at least a week old.
They will take orientation flights at much lower temperatures and I have seen lots of queens coming and going from Apideas on days when it is 14c-15c.
Other variables would be the number of drones mated with and the quality of the drones mated with. No matter what you do some will turn out to be drone layers.


If I have a bunch of queens that mate and lay and some don't lay at the same time but, say a week later

One of my apideas turfed out its queen which still hadn't started laying several days after 10 others from the same batch had started. She looked and walked like a mated queen but there was obviously something wrong with her. I put her back in but she was gone the next day so I gave them a new virgin queen so I would agree with you that it is a bad sign if they take longer after a spell of perfect weather.

With regard to queen rearing, I think the trick is to aim for double what you need and then keep the best of them.

[gavin]

Here's another variable to ponder. In an Amm apiary (in an area with other types too) do you get more Amm matings in poorer weather and more mixed matings during heatwaves?

[Jon]

As far as I am concerned the jury is still out about apiary vicinity mating.
What I have noticed at the moment is that anyone who is not mollycoddling their colonies has lost all their drones - ie anyone not feeding colonies will have had the drones kicked out in the last few weeks. We have had 6 weeks of rain, wind and low temperatures.
I had one colony start to turf out drones but I still have thousands of drones and drone brood all stages.

We had two days of 24c 2nd and 3rd of June and all my queens flew and mated. I hope the yellow drones in the neighbourhood had already been given the boot but time will tell.

[Adam]

I'm not sure about apiary vicinity mating. However as I am a mile from the E coast the daytime temperature is 2 or 3 degrees cooler than 10 miles inland so my chances of good mating are less than they might be so maybe my girls are going to ones that generally mate in cooler weather than the softies - say in Hampshire. (That's the South of England for you lot! :) ). The coolness notices in other ways - for example the OSR starts a week earlier inland so I can get myself prepared.