Do queen bees sting?

[Ben Framed]

I suppose we all handle queens, some of us more than others.  So far I have not been stung by a queen. I also realize virgin queens can fight it out. Can queens sting once mated? Have you been stung by a queen?

[AR Beekeeper]

Yes, queens can sting.  No, I have never been stung by a queen, queens usually don't sting except in a fight with another queen.  Mated queens are capable of stinging, but I have never seen a mated queen in a fight with another queen. 

[incognito]

Mated queens are capable of stinging, but I have never seen a mated queen in a fight with another queen.

Are they left to starve during a supercedure or do they fight it out with the replacement queen?

[AR Beekeeper]

The bees probably allow the old queen to starve, I have seen a mother/daughter together in a colony without any fighting for 5 weeks.  They were both on the same comb or the adjoining comb, both laying, and ignoring each other.

[BeeMaster2]

I have never been stung by a queen and I frequently catch them and hold them in a closed fist and go and get a one handed queen catcher.
I had 2 queens in my observation hive. They layed side by side for about a month and then the old queen disappeared.
Jim Altmiller

[Ben Framed]

I have never been stung by a queen and I frequently catch them and hold them in a closed fist and go and get a one handed queen catcher.
I had 2 queens in my observation hive. They layed side by side for about a month and then the old queen disappeared.
Jim Altmiller

Jim I wonder if she naturally died, swarmed, or perhaps the workers finally balled her, or some other reason?

[van from Arkansas]

Phil, good question.  Yes, I have been stung twice by a queen.  The pain is minor, nothing like being stung by a guard bee.  The stinger of a queen is barbless, there is a poison sack, however, queens very rarely sting.  I have handled many and been stung only twice.

Something I?ve never seen before today:  anybody please comment?!?!?!?!

Queen cups with royal jelly and no egg or larva.  In detail:  I was taking down a cloak board queen rearing hive.  I raised two batches of queens so time to let this hive rest.  I am in the top deep, excluded from the queen so there are no eggs or larva for on any frame.  I am scraping burr comb and there are two queen cells.  WHAT NO WAY,,,  did I miss a queen cell, is there a queen in the top deep, these are my thoughts.

I look very closely at the queen cells and there is no egg, no larva, just royal jelly??  I would call a queen cup, but I have never seen a queen cup with royal jelly.

Ok on to another hive, a package, that raised another queen so there two queens.  I checked on the hive and there are still two beautiful queens laying in a five frame nuc.  Laying on outer frames, no less.    I am going to have to add more space soon, like this afternoon.

Health to your bees.

[AR Beekeeper]

A queen cell started with an egg from a worker.  The egg police finally found it and removed the larvae.  Same situation is often seen when a colony develops laying workers and they make a last ditch effort. 

[van from Arkansas]

Norvel, good of a response as any.  Keep in mind, there is a queen, excluded below in the bottom deep.  The cloak board was removed last week and only in the hive for 2-3 days.

However, I like your response, only possibility that would make sense to me is a worker laid an eggs and egg was removed.  Thank you Norvel.

Not sure how a worker developed her ovaries with a queen below, but I have seen stranger things?

Health to your bees.

[BeeMaster2]

Van,
From the studies I have seen, most hives have a few laying workers but their eggs are constantly being policed by the bees. That would explain the eggs above the excluder. Having the cloak board in May have made them desperate enough to try to make a queen from the eggs. It is possible for a laying worker to lay a viable egg to make a queen.
Jim Altmiller

[BeeMaster2]

I copied this from Michael Bush?a site.
Anarchistic bees" are ever present but usually in small enough numbers to not cause a problem and are simply policed by the workers UNLESS they need drones. The number is always small as long as ovary development is suppressed.

See page 9 of "The Wisdom of the Hive"

"Although worker honey bees cannot mate, they do possess ovaries and can produce viable eggs; hence they do have the potential to have male offspring (in bees and other Hymenoptera, fertilized eggs produce females while unfertilized eggs produce males). It is now clear, however, that this potential is exceedingly rarely realized as long as a colony contains a queen (in queenless colonies, workers eventually lay large numbers of male eggs; see the review in Page and Erickson 1988). One supporting piece of evidence comes from studies of worker ovary development in queenright colonies, which have consistently revealed extremely low levels of development. All studies to date report far fewer than 1 % of workers have ovaries developed sufficiently to lay eggs (reviewed in Ratnieks 1993; see also Visscher 1995a). For example, Ratnieks dissected 10,634 worker bees from 21 colonies and found that only 7 had moderately developed egg (half the size of a completed egg) and that just one had a fully developed egg in her body."
If you do the math, in a normal booming queenright hive of 100,000 bees that's 70 laying workers. In a laying worker hive it's much higher.

"More than half of the bees in laying worker colonies have developed ovaries (Sakagami 1954)..."-- Reproduction by worker honey bees (Apis mellifer L.) R.E. Page Jr and E.H. Erickson Jr. - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology August 1988, Volume 23, Issue 2, pp 117-126
"Reproductive honey bee workers have considerable fecundity, with laying workers in queenless colonies each producing c. 19-32 eggs per day (Perepelova, 1928, cited in Ribbands, 1953). "--Evidence for a queen-produced egg-marking pheromone and its use in worker policing in the honey bee FLW Ratnieks - Journal of Apicultural Research Volume 34, Issue 1, 1995 - Taylor & Francis

Michael Bush

I?m still looking for the name for a worker bee laying a viable queen cell.
Jim Altmiller

[BeeMaster2]

Ok, I found the correct word.
Thelytoky is a particular form of parthenogenesis in which the development of a female individual occurs from an unfertilized egg. Automixis is a form of thelytoky, but there are different kinds of automixis. The kind of automixis relevant here is one in which two haploid products from the same meiosis combine to form a diploid zygote.
It is on Wikipedia under Cape Honey Bees.
It is also in HoneBeeBiology And Beekeeping, chapter 9; queens, queens, queens, page 115.
Jim Altmiller 

[Ben Framed]

Very interesting to say the least. Jim, is this restricted to the Cape honey bee or can this occur with our honey bees found here in America? 

[van from Arkansas]

Thank you Jim, much appreciated.  I have studied the cape honey bee only a small amount.  What caught me eye was the cape honey bee destroying hundreds of African honey bee hives, the so called killer bees hives were killed by cape honey bees.  The cape honey bee destroys the African Queen and commenced to lay eggs that developed into cape honeybees[female bees] thus the demise of the African honey bee in the given test area in South Africa.

Health to your bees.

[AR Beekeeper]

Mackensen reported finding the trait in 3 strains of honey bees in the U.S.A. in 1943.

Van; the queen cell with jelly in it would have been at least 4 days old, did the queen have access to that area during the time the egg would have been laid?  If yes, the queen could have laid it, then for some reason the workers removed the larva.  I thought the excluder was in until the day you discovered the cell.

[BeeMaster2]

Very interesting to say the least. Jim, is this restricted to the Cape honey bee or can this occur with our honey bees found here in America? 

No but our bees do it very rarely per Honey Bee Biology.
Jim Altmiller

[van from Arkansas]

Mackensen reported finding the trait in 3 strains of honey bees in the U.S.A. in 1943.

Van; the queen cell with jelly in it would have been at least 4 days old, did the queen have access to that area during the time the egg would have been laid?  If yes, the queen could have laid it, then for some reason the workers removed the larva.  I thought the excluder was in until the day you discovered the cell.

Norvel, the queen has been excluded for about 5 weeks this day.  In detail:  I located the queen and placed the queen in the lower deep and installed the cloak/QE partition the first week of April.  The lower deep was cloaked for 3 days then a few days later and I raised a batch of queens.  About the 3rd week of April I cloaked again for 3 days and raised 10 more queens which are due to hatch this Sunday.   This day I removed the cloak/QE partition and restored the hive to normal configuration.  Today, 5/7 is when I found the queen cups with royal jelly?  The queen has not had access to the upper deep for 5 weeks, contained by the queen excluder built in the cloak/QE board.
Van

[The15thMember]

Ok, I found the correct word.
Thelytoky is a particular form of parthenogenesis in which the development of a female individual occurs from an unfertilized egg. Automixis is a form of thelytoky, but there are different kinds of automixis. The kind of automixis relevant here is one in which two haploid products from the same meiosis combine to form a diploid zygote.
It is on Wikipedia under Cape Honey Bees.
It is also in HoneBeeBiology And Beekeeping, chapter 9; queens, queens, queens, page 115.
Jim Altmiller 

That is absolutely fascinating!!  That is so crazy awesome, I'm freaking out!    I had no idea it was ever possible for a worker to lay a viable female egg. 

[Ben Framed]

Ok, I found the correct word.
Thelytoky is a particular form of parthenogenesis in which the development of a female individual occurs from an unfertilized egg. Automixis is a form of thelytoky, but there are different kinds of automixis. The kind of automixis relevant here is one in which two haploid products from the same meiosis combine to form a diploid zygote.
It is on Wikipedia under Cape Honey Bees.
It is also in HoneBeeBiology And Beekeeping, chapter 9; queens, queens, queens, page 115.
Jim Altmiller 

That is absolutely fascinating!!  That is so crazy awesome, I'm freaking out!    I had no idea it was ever possible for a worker to lay a viable female egg.

I know Member, I have heard somewhere, I think it was here, that some older keepers discussed the possibility of workers moving eggs from one viable hive to a hopelessly queenless hive. I do not remember much about that subject because I did not swallow that theory, and to be totally honest, it is hard for me to swallow this one!    lol

I know Jim is reporting what he was taught from Mr Bush as Mr Bush is reporting what he was taught from others. I confess, I am having a hard time keeping it down after trying to swallow it. lol. I mean no disrespect to anyone. I did not major in science (regretfully). But I do know with God and his creatures, all things are possible. I know he created his creatures to do whatever he choose for them to do. It's just that I am questioning Dr Mackensen. Even still, he may be 100 percent right. As I said I am having a hard time swallowing it. Patience please. 




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[Ben Framed]

I would like to add, very good discussion.