laying worker drones

beetalkin · August 31, 2011, 03:52:22 PM

hello all, one of my hives went queenless & i was wondering if drones from laying workers are any good to fertilize a new queen. i was thinking it would be possible to make a hive queenless on purpose to get late season drones. all comments welcome.

thanks, mike

boca · August 31, 2011, 04:21:52 PM

Quote from: beetalkin on August 31, 2011, 03:52:22 PM
...if drones from laying workers are any good to fertilize a new queen.

Drones hatched from eggs of a worker have the same genetic value as that of a queen's. However they are often raised in worker cells and the colony is under stress, so they are often weaker. Sometimes they are smaller than a normal worker.
Nevertheless they would fertilise the queen.

Quote from: beetalkin on August 31, 2011, 03:52:22 PM
i was thinking it would be possible to make a hive queenless on purpose to get late season drones

It is too late to start this experiment. It takes time for a worker to start laying eggs, raise them and mature the drones. ...months.

By the way I'm doing a similar late mating experiment. In one of my nucs there is a virgin queen. Few days ago I saw several drones flying out from one my hives. But the temperature is fairly low, max 17C and rainy. I will see in a week what happens.

BlueBee · August 31, 2011, 06:12:49 PM

What boca says make sense to me, but I don't know. How about putting some drone comb in the middle of a queen right brood nest? I still have drones here in Michigan.

Wow, Boca, this will be interesting to see if you can get your queen mated so far north at this time of year. I think I got my virgin nuc queens mated here within the past week, but I'm a little more than 15 degrees latitude south of Finland. They've been getting fatter by the day but I haven't seen any eggs yet.

In MS, there is still a long time before winter moves in, but Finland would be more of a challenge. Boca, what is your plan for getting such a late season nuc built up for your winter?

FRAMEshift · August 31, 2011, 08:38:36 PM

A few problems with this. Queens generally fly further from the hive than the drones specifically to avoid DCAs that might have her sons present. This is to prevent extreme inline breeding. So it is unlikely your queen will mate with drones from the same beeyard.

If you did get them to mate, your queen would be mating with her grandson. Not as bad as her son (who since he is haploid is really just the queen's flying sperm :-D ) But this would still be a high level of inbreeding. Not good.

Michael Bush · August 31, 2011, 09:01:57 PM

I think it's better if you want late season drones around to think in terms of having a few queenless colonies so they won't kill the drones, rather than so they will develop laying workers. You can pull a queen and put her in a nuc box for two weeks and then juggle which hives are queenless so they don't develop laying workers. You could also put a frame of open brood in those queenless colonies to keep them from turning laying worker, but, of course, they will raise a queen when you give them the chance and you'll have to deal with that.

Size does matter in queen matings. The small ones may even have an advantage in speed, but they also may have a disadvantage. I've seen studies that show a smaller drone is faster and have the advantage of speed and stamina (they were trying to figure out why AHB are so successful), but I've also seen studies that showed that larger drones were more likely to mate with large queens and smaller drones with small queens.

FRAMEshift · August 31, 2011, 09:11:45 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on August 31, 2011, 09:01:57 PM
think in terms of having a few queenless colonies so they won't kill the drones,

Are colonies with queens more likely to kill drones? Why would that be? I've never heard that before.

Michael Bush · August 31, 2011, 10:39:49 PM

>Are colonies with queens more likely to kill drones? Why would that be? I've never heard that before.

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#notinqueenlesshives

In a dearth and in the fall the drones are massacred except in queenless hives.

FRAMEshift · August 31, 2011, 10:56:49 PM

Quote from: Michael Bush on August 31, 2011, 10:39:49 PM
>Are colonies with queens more likely to kill drones? Why would that be? I've never heard that before.

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#notinqueenlesshives

In a dearth and in the fall the drones are massacred except in queenless hives.

Ah yes. If a hive is queenless, the bees are looking for another way to save/spread the genes of the colony. So drones it is.

boca · September 01, 2011, 03:49:28 AM

Quote from: BlueBee on August 31, 2011, 06:12:49 PM
Boca, what is your plan for getting such a late season nuc built up for your winter?

I had prepared a few nucs in summer for mating and spare queen storage. During the summer I weakened the nucs 3-4 times, by moving them in a different location depriving them from the older foraging bees. I have the impression this shock did not lowered brood production but even stimulated it. The result is 6 half frames of full brood, only a few centimetres of honey on the top. The nucs are so full of bees that they hang on the entrance + sealed brood inside. So I consider them already built up.
About a week ago I needed a queen and replaced it with a sealed queen cell. I saw the new queen emerged on Saturday. If she starts laying I will go in winter with it otherwise I combine two nucs.

Michael Bush · September 01, 2011, 05:54:24 AM

The idea of early and late breeding of queens to stack the deck for YOUR drones has been around awhile. Dee Lusby is a proponent as was Isaac Hopkins:

"When endeavouring to improve our bees by cross-breeding we must of course be as particular about raising select drones for mating purposes as about the queens themselves. As the mating takes place in the air (see Chaper III.) and is not, at least as yet, under our control, our only security is to have our select young queens mated when only select drones are flying. The periods of the year when we are most likely to succeed in this way are the early spring and the late autumn; in the former by managing to breed our select queens and drones in advance of all others, in the latter by making the colony which produces the best drones queenless before the drones are killed off, and thus secure that these shall be flying when there are none alive in the other colonies. At other times throughout the season there will of course be drones from all the hives upon the wing. "--Issac Hopkins, Chapter XII. of The Australasian Bee Manual, 1886

boca · September 01, 2011, 07:00:20 AM

Another method of increasing the probability of mating queens with YOUR selected drones is let them mating late in the day, when queens and drones do not fly normally. It can be applied throughout summer.
Close the mating nucs and selected drone rearing colonies in cellar the evening. Keep them closed until the normal drone flying activity is over by early afternoon.
Bring the closed bees out from cellar and put them to their normal location. Maybe they know it is not midday any more, but both queens and drones fly out to mate.

BjornBee · September 01, 2011, 07:55:54 AM

Quote from: Michael Bush on September 01, 2011, 05:54:24 AM
The idea of early and late breeding of queens to stack the deck for YOUR drones has been around awhile. Dee Lusby is a proponent as was Isaac Hopkins:

"When endeavouring to improve our bees by cross-breeding we must of course be as particular about raising select drones for mating purposes as about the queens themselves. As the mating takes place in the air (see Chaper III.) and is not, at least as yet, under our control, our only security is to have our select young queens mated when only select drones are flying. The periods of the year when we are most likely to succeed in this way are the early spring and the late autumn; in the former by managing to breed our select queens and drones in advance of all others, in the latter by making the colony which produces the best drones queenless before the drones are killed off, and thus secure that these shall be flying when there are none alive in the other colonies. At other times throughout the season there will of course be drones from all the hives upon the wing. "--Issac Hopkins, Chapter XII. of The Australasian Bee Manual, 1886

I think the concept being passed along to others is a bunch of fodder and fluff. Late season queen rearing and successful mating presents their own problems such as limited queen cell production, requeening hives at times when fall brood may be decreased or limited, and other negative factors.

Mating queens in September, thinking you are going to have good outcomes, is very questionable, especially in the north. There is a reason why hives kill off drones, make far less queens when made queenless, and stop making wax by this time. But of course beekeepers think they know how to fool nature, and can manipulate hives at their whim. Go ahead and try to raise queens late in the season. Just be prepared for a less than expected in success and quality.

There is a reason why queen producers shut down and stop selling queens, even in the south. And if they did try these methods, and sold late season queens, we as a group would be taking part in such threads as "Why are late season queens so crappy!"

Yes, most beekeepers will experience that late season hive that tries to requeen themselves. And you may or may not get a good queen. But the idea of forced drone production, manipulating hives to purposely produce queens late season, and passing along advice stating "late autumn" queen rearing, is about as bad advice as I know. That is my opinion. And I would suggest otherwise. I would not do this on purpose.

boca · September 03, 2011, 05:48:40 AM

Today the temp is 16C, a little bit cloudy and windy.
I saw a few drones flying out from a queenright hive. I have also seen the queen running nervously on the comb. No mating sign. No eggs.

boca · September 03, 2011, 10:06:44 AM

Here she is!

Today she came out. She walked around the entrance, did some orientation loops and flew away. Then it started to rain. I was waiting for about half an hour but haven't seen her coming back. I hope she is in safely.

It is her last chance to mate because the drones are being chased out aggressively.

BlueBee · September 03, 2011, 11:53:27 AM

Best wishes boca, I hope your queen made it back. I got lucky and got all my late season queens mated during the past week. I've still got some drones in the hives, but they're becoming less.

boca · September 17, 2011, 05:15:22 PM

The queen is alive and well. She seems plump but no eggs. It's not her fault I started to feed the nuc before she mated. The workers filled all available cells with syrup, and fill readily all new vacancies as the brood emerge. She just doesn't find an empty cell.

We will see hopefully next spring how she is.