Queen Size, Whats the deal.......

[biggraham610]

Just wondering, most of the mated queens I buy are bigger that the bees, I mean, the shape of course is different, but otherwise they seem similar in size, I was splitting a swarm I hived today, and after diligently laboriously, crazily looking over all of the brood frames looking for her, I finally came across her. On the back of a frame that was bareley drawn. I was looking at the solid brood frames. Through allllllllllll the bees. She looked like a Mack Truck, Huge, I was astonished, I have never seen a queen that big. I wish I had my camera, but will on the next inspection. Do they keep growing or what? I know she was the old queen from the swarmed hive, man she was a giant. :jawdrop:

[biggraham610]

Forgot to add, the reason I was so intent on finding her was because I was planning on introducing a mated buckfast to the split and didnt want to have her executed. G

[OldMech]

  According to research done by David Tarpy at NCSU queens mate with an average of 13 to 15 drones. A few queens were found to have mated with only one drone, and others with as many as 45 drones. Mating frequency.. or, queens that mate with more drones have a larger sperm count in their spermatheca.
   Large queens were shown to have a larger spermatheca, mate with more drones, and were capable of storing a larger amount of sperm. Less than 3 million sperm were considered low quality queens, 5 million were considered high quality queens..   It correlated that the large fat queens WERE the best queens.
   His research indicates that the queens we as beekeepers are getting from breeders are as good now as they have ever been.  The research is ongoing in an effort to determine what is happening to cause 31% of queens to fail. Pesticides from treatments? From crops? Fungicides? Banked queens?
    We will have to wait to find out.
   Also noted in later research..   He found out that the queens that mated with more drones gave off a stronger pheromone and were better treated and cared for by the bees in the colony. Low quality queens were accepted, high quality queens were ADORED. A lot to extrapolate from that!

[biggraham610]

Thanks alot for your input. Very interesting. I guess when I do the next splits on that Hive I will let them raise their own. If bigger is better, shes a dandy!! :shock:

[GLOCK]

A healthy well mated queen. Isn't she beautiful?

[biggraham610]

She sure is. I will get a pic next time in. Mine is colored the same. G

[GSF]

Is that an egg peeping out her backside?

[biggraham610]

sure looks like it........ :-D

[OldMech]

That is one sexy queen Glock!

[AliciaH]

VERY pretty girl!

[biggraham610]

Heres one that just came home from a superscedure or maybe swarmed hive not as big as the one I started this post about, but not bad, and she made it through the birds!