How many seasons should a properly mated, healthy queen produce a good strong brood pattern In most cases?
Did she mate with 10 or 30 drones?
Yeah, exactly. It is all about
1) how well she developed in the cell
2) how well she was mated
3) her ongoing health, exposure to pests and diseases and external factors
According to Van, she will go ... well into her geriatric period. :)
I have seen some queens last less than 2 months and go shot gun.
I have had some queens twerking just as well long into the middle of her third season as her first month.
I rarely see them performing as well in their 4th summer. They may still be tight and right, but definitely much slower.
Hope that helps!
We have had them go into their 3rd Summer, but not many.
I think that migratory Bk'ing is hard on queens, a very experienced BK once said that every time you shift you can lose up to 2% of queens.
Our bees can do up to 6 shifts a season, varying from 50 to 200 miles.
I think there is a lot more supersedure goes on than we know about, only about 30% of our queens are marked.
Thanks fellows, and thanks Oldbeavo for the extra. I am always interested in hearing about you migratory folks and your input and experiences. I bet you really enjoy beekeeping in this avenue. I want to encourage you to write a book on the subject. I would gladly buy a copy!
Sincerely,
Phillip
I have a spin off question. No doubt queens mate multiple times. My question is how do they mate multiple times with the drone parts in the way? I just watched a video by Ian Stepler and he mentioned queens may mate five quick times before returning to the hive and will go back to the drone area if necessary for more. (I am sure he gave that as a general number) With the detachment of the drone body parts how is this possible for the next drone to mate? Does the next drone remove it?
Yes Phil, the first thing the drone does is remove the previous drone part. If the queen returns to the hive, then the nurse bees will remove the last drone part. A queen may go on more than one mating flight, and on different days, consecutive days that is.
We are beginning to study single drone mated queens [SDM] as this limits genetic diversity. Apparently a single drone can donate approximately 5 million to 7 million spermozoa, a lot more than previously thought.
Also we just recently learned about drones is: there is a warfare among different drone semon as there is spermacidal chemicals in semon that attack nonself semon. In other words one drones semon attacks another drones spermozoa when mixed. This process is currently under study. Natures way of survival for the fittest is my reasoning, but what do I know?
Does this spermicide action from a multiple drones take place in the spermatheca, don?t know? I doubt it myself. Most likely the spermicide has a short half life rendering the spermicide useless after a short period of time, my GUESS.
I just provided more questions than answers. Appears every time we discover an event in a honeybee, we generate more questions.
Van
Excellent information Mr Van. Thank you for your post... I suppose if an AI / II breeder such as yourself has the desire to breed for a more purebred line of bees. The single drone method would be a sure way to accomplishing this by reaching your goal much sooner? Of course breeding for longevity would not be the objective in the short run, defining a near perfect bee would be the objective? I am happy we have you here. Keep up the good work!
Quote from: van from Arkansas on June 17, 2020, 10:08:19 PM
Yes Phil, the first thing the drone does is remove the previous drone part. If the queen returns to the hive, then the nurse bees will remove the last drone part. A queen may go on more than one mating flight, and on different days, consecutive days that is.
We are beginning to study single drone mated queens [SDM] as this limits genetic diversity. Apparently a single drone can donate approximately 5 million to 7 million spermozoa, a lot more than previously thought.
Also we just recently learned about drones is: there is a warfare among different drone semon as there is spermacidal chemicals in semon that attack nonself semon. In other words one drones semon attacks another drones spermozoa when mixed. This process is currently under study. Natures way of survival for the fittest is my reasoning, but what do I know?
Does this spermicide action from a multiple drones take place in the spermatheca, don?t know? I doubt it myself. Most likely the spermicide has a short half life rendering the spermicide useless after a short period of time, my GUESS.
I just provided more questions than answers. Appears every time we discover an event in a honeybee, we generate more questions.
Van
Wow! That is incredible!
This is the link to a summary text of a more detailed article in the Feb2020 publication of ABJ. I was unable to find the whole article online in a cursory search. This gives the jest of it:
https://americanbeejournal.com/the-hidden-world-of-bee-sex-sperm-wars-queen-manipulation-and-greedy-genes/
Yes. Thank you HP. That is the article I read, at least one of them. Thanks for posting.