1) Is it safe to assume that drones only fly for mating or do they fly just for sheer pleasure for it?
2) also do pollen gathering bees gather nectar or not in the same flight?
Quote from: muradulislam on July 01, 2011, 06:02:18 AM
1) Is it safe to assume that drones only fly for mating or do they fly just for sheer pleasure for it?
You can observe a bee's behavior but you can't observe their intentions or motivations. :-D This is true for people as well.
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2) also do pollen gathering bees gather nectar or not in the same flight?
There is a sub-specialization in forager bees. Some gather only nectar, some gather only pollen, and some gather both. It has been speculated that the behavior of each sub-group is determined by which drone fathered that sub-group.
Drones fly from hive to hive, they take up residence wherever the worker bees will tolerate them. A drone may be born in a hive many miles from where he ends up, however if the hive has no use for him anymore, they will chase him out and not let him back in.
I don't know if they harvest both pollen and nectar at the same time, but it's documented they focus on harvesting either pollen or nectar; depending on the need.
Edit Nevermind, I found this out there while reading. It turns out "Two studies of bee collection habits found that about 58% of bees collect nectar only, 25% pollen only and 17% both nectar and pollen."
http://adventuresinbeeland.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/6th-honeybee-behaviour-revision-post-bee-foraging/ (http://adventuresinbeeland.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/6th-honeybee-behaviour-revision-post-bee-foraging/)
is it safe to assume that 90% of the virgin queens get mated, just did a split and wnted to know chances of queen mating after emergence........
Quote from: muradulislam on July 03, 2011, 02:47:46 PM
is it safe to assume that 90% of the virgin queens get mated, just did a split and wnted to know chances of queen mating after emergence........
There are too many variables to say what the percentage is. One variable is time of year and whether there are drones flying. Weather is also a variable and if there is a long period of rain the virgin queen may not be able to mate. If you have dry weather in the summer and there are other honey bees in the area producing drones, your chances of getting a mated queen are very good.
Remember that bees have survived for millions of years. If this system didn't work pretty well, there would be no bees. :-D