How is next queen chosen? ie:how do they decide which one gets royal jelly?

Algonam · January 23, 2011, 08:43:05 PM

Does anybody know how the bees make the decision that a certain cell gets the royal jelly to be built up to be the next queen?

AllenF · January 23, 2011, 08:59:38 PM

During the need to swarm phase, the queen lays eggs in queen cells the workers are building for the new queen.

When they go queenless, I would guess they pick larvae at the right age and in an area that can be made into a queen cell easily, but I am guessing here.

Michael Bush · January 24, 2011, 12:42:23 AM

Workers prefer full sisters to less related. They prefer a cell they can tear down (no cocoons) to one they can't. They prefer the right age larvae (just hatched) to one that isn't. The prefer an edge of a comb to the middle of a comb.

Which is a slightly more detailed way of saying mostly what AllenF said.

Acebird · January 31, 2011, 12:08:19 PM

QuoteWorkers prefer full sisters to less related.

Michael, could you elaborate on this? If all the eggs are coming from the same queen isn't aren't they all full sisters?

RayMarler · January 31, 2011, 03:06:04 PM

Acebird...

All workers are half sisters because they all have the same queen mother.
But they don't all have the same drone father (queens mate with multiple drones).

There are groups of full sisters which have the same drone father,
the other sisters not having the same drone father are half sisters.

Acebird · January 31, 2011, 04:53:42 PM

QuoteAll workers are half sisters because they all have the same queen mother.
But they don't all have the same drone father (queens mate with multiple drones).

Duh, I forgot about that. Somehow the bees know the geneology of the eggs?

Jim134 · January 31, 2011, 08:33:11 PM

Quote from: Algonam on January 23, 2011, 08:43:05 PM
Does anybody know how the bees make the decision that a certain cell gets the royal jelly to be built up to be the next queen?

All eggs get royal jelly for the firsts 3 days.

BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)

WPG · February 02, 2011, 04:32:13 AM

A small amount of royal jelly is in the cell before the egg hatches, then the larva is feed royal jelly for 3 days.

Some research indicates that worker larva are weaned off fullstrength royal jelly during the latter part of the three days and transitioned to bee bread.

So an emergency queen raised from an egg laid in a worker cell originally may not be as high quality because of not being feed full strength royal jelly her whole life.

Bees work and live because of smells.

They are tuned in to subtle differences of pheronomes (odors).
They can tell a returning bee that has been gone awhile, wind blown and covered in pollen etc is their hive mate. So being able to tell one group of eggs from another is not suprising.

indypartridge · March 23, 2011, 08:57:13 AM

Quote from: Acebird on January 31, 2011, 04:53:42 PM
QuoteAll workers are half sisters because they all have the same queen mother.
But they don't all have the same drone father (queens mate with multiple drones).

Duh, I forgot about that. Somehow the bees know the geneology of the eggs?

Yes, they know their full-sisters from their half-sisters. There's a lot of politics that goes on between these sister groups when it comes to raising a new queen. There is also research that indicates that when a swarm is deciding on a new home, the sister groups may act as "voting blocs" for a location picked by a full sister versus a location picked by a half-sister.

ArmucheeBee · March 23, 2011, 11:19:42 PM

I'm trying to get my head around this: "sisters" "voting blocks". i have an MS in Biology, animal behavior, but did not know this. This is some crazy stuff. I want to hear more. :evil: