Do queen bees sting?

[Ben Framed]

I am trying to decipher and digest this shocking revealing information lol. (Shocking to me anyway)  Lets see if I am on track so far as follows.

I always make every effort to be open minded about new information presented. As I said, I know Jim is reporting what he was taught from Mr Bush as Mr Bush is reporting what he was taught from the reports there as brought forward by Jim. From what I am reading in Mr Bushes report, copied and pasted by Jim is all about drones?  Jim added about worker Cape honey bees can sometimes lay fertilized eggs to develop queens by some feat of nature? From there I ask Jim if Cape honey bees are the only ones that exhibit this remarkable feat and added, can bees here in America can also exhibit this phenomenon? His answer as follows. 

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

AR backed this up by stating three of our honey bee strains here in America can also perform this feat quoting Mackensen.

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

Now I again ask another question. Is Mackensen the only scientist that substitutes this Phenonium about our bees here in America? (three strains that can produce queen bees from worker bees).

And, if this is true, then the old timers were not too far off after all. Could it be possible that instead of workers bringing in eggs from other hives, they were laying them themselves?  Again I ask for patience please. 




.

[AR Beekeeper]

I have read, I can't remember where, that the estimate is that one worker laid egg out of ten thousand will become female.  I think it is accepted that instead of moving the queen's eggs the workers will lay one that accidently becomes female. 

[Ben Framed]

Friends I searched several articles, and found as described (Cape Honeybee) and the Africanized Bee found In the Americas, that could achieve what has been described until the last heading which I will list below. (Thelytoky in a Strain of U.S. Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera L.) | Beesource) ... This explanation listed was done under laboratory setting and was a sort of a forced; an unnatural situation, (if I am understanding this right). This article picks up, (further down), where Jim's copy of Mr Bushes report left off. I confess that this finding is beyond my understanding by a simple quick read. Perhaps some of you science minded folks can decipher and explain in layman's terms?

Thanks, Phillip




LAYING WORKERS. IT HAPPENS. FIX IT. | Bee Culture
Jun 27, 2016 ? But these disguised queens have never mated, consequently they can't lay sperm-fertilized eggs. Very often more than one egg


Laying worker bee - Wikipedia


PerfectBee ? the-science-of-bees ? h...
How Honey Bees Reproduce - PerfectBee


Thelytoky - Wikipedia


Rebel honeybee workers lay eggs when their queen is away | Science News


Dec 4, 2018 ? REBEL WITH A CAUSE When a queen honeybee leaves her colony to start another elsewhere, rebel worker bees ...


Inheritance of thelytoky in the honey bee Apis mellifera capensis | Heredity - Nature
by NC Chapman ? 2015 ? Cited by 14 ? Related articles
Jan 14, 2015 ? In the Cape honey bee it has been argued that thelytoky (th) ... and Texas, USA, where thelytoky has not been reported. ... Thus 1/3 of the offspring of Th,th workers will lose ...



Thelytoky in a Strain of U.S. Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera L.) | Beesource ...
by G DeGrandi-Hoffman ? Cited by 6 ? Related articles
Thelytoky in a Strain of U.S. Honey Bees (Apis Mellifera L.) May, 1991 ? Bee Science. G. DeGrandi-Hoffman, E. H. Erickson Jr., D. Lusby, and E.

[van from Arkansas]

Mr. Ben, Phil, you sure can see through the smoke whereas most of us are blinded by the flames.
I hate using scientific latin words, so I have avoided such as possible.  Chromosome is one word I must use.  The word chromosome means all the dna of an organism stated in the simplest of terms.

I present some facts below:

Apis mellifera capensis, the cape honey bee, Is one of two known organisms capable of thelytoky.  The other known is a wasp.  A female worker lays an unfertilized egg that developes into a female clone[exact copy].  Confusing, you bet.  What happens is the female worker has a single set of chromosomes in the egg as all species,  but this single chromosome doubles in the eggs thus producing an egg that had two sets of chromosomes, just as if the egg was laid by a fertilized queen which lays an egg with one chromosome from mom, and one chromosome from dad.  As stated, this is unique.

Ok, on to the guessing part, NOT FACT.  The reason is believed to be favored by evolution.  Let me explain.  In South Africa where is the origin of the cape honey bee, the weather is notorious for sudden storms being so close to the South Pole.  So many queens were lost to mating flights that workers evolved a mechanism to lay worker bees by means described above.  The storms placed pressure on the bees by eliminating the queen and when ever an organism is stressed, the organism will respond to the stress by what ever the means to survive.

Fact: when an egg receives two complete sets of dna, the egg will develop into a living organism.  In nature, mom presents one copy, dad another copy and the egg developes.  However, dad does not have to donate the dna,  the dna can come from self as in the cape honey bee or another female can present the dna.

For further studies, one can study DOLLY the sheep where scientists took an egg from Dolly, inserted another copy of Dolly?s dna into her egg, so the egg then had two copies of dna.  The egg develop into an exact clone of Dolly.  Dolly acted as the mom and the dad.  I never said I condone such studies.

Van

[The15thMember]

Wow, all of this is really fascinating.  I read/skimmed over all the references you posted, Phillip.  I'll just sort of rewrite all this in my own words both for my understanding and hopefully for yours as well.  As always, someone please correct me if I say something incorrect.  Van was posting as I was typing, so I apologize if this ends up being a retread of what he said.   

So first, a brief review of what normally happens in European honey bees.  All hymenopterans (that's bees, wasps, and ants) are haplodiploid, meaning the way that gender is determined is by how many sets of chromosomes (the actual strands of DNA) the individual's cells have.  Drones are haploid; they have one set of 16 chromosomes.  Workers and queens are diploid; they have 2 sets of 16 chromosomes, or 32 total. 

In the queen's reproductive system, cells undergo a special type of division called meiosis to produce eggs.  The eggs, you see, need to be haploid, so that when combined with a haploid sperm, the resulting bee will be diploid, and therefore female.  However, if the queen does not fertilize an egg, the resulting bee is haploid, and therefore a drone.  Here's a flow chart, if you are a visual learner.   

[attachment=0][/attachment]

The worker bees have ovaries just like queens, but they are kept from functioning by the queen pheromone, which suppresses their development.  If a worker bee isn't getting enough queen pheromone, either because the hive is queenless or by happenstance, her ovaries will develop and she will begin producing eggs.  However she has of course never mated, so she can only produce haploid eggs, which will be drones, since she doesn't have any sperm to combine with the eggs to make them diploid. 

However, once in a very great while, something strange will happen.  When a laying worker's reproductive cells are undergoing meiosis to produce eggs, sometimes the haploid proto-eggs (if you will) combine to form diploid eggs.  Since this "accident" creates a diploid egg, it will develop into a female, since in honey bees, being diploid means you are a female.  If the workers feed the larva only royal jelly, she will of course turn into a queen, just like any other female egg/larva would.  The process of an unfertilized egg creating a female is called thelytoky, and this type of thelytoky is called automixis.  Again, here is a flow chart. 

[attachment=1][/attachment]

The Cape honey bees are an interesting case study here, because for Cape honey bees, this isn't a once-in-a-great-while occurance; it happens all the time.  Cape honey bees regularly produce queens from laying workers when the hive goes queenless, and this has led them to become parasites of sorts of the African honey bees where their ranges overlap.  The Cape honey bee laying workers will enter nests of African honey bees, and lay eggs which can develop into Cape honey bees queens, thus turning the hive from an African honey bee nest into a Cape honey bee nest.

[van from Arkansas]

Member, excellent, just very good explanation.  I tried explaining the same without haploid, diploid, all those genetics latin terms.  Honey bees break a-lot of rules when it comes to genetics.  All mammals and most insects have an X or a Y genetic code to determine sex, make or female.  But not the honeybee, sex is determined by different methods.

[iddee]

Hey, Phil, who was the male that fertilized Mary, for her to have Jesus. Was that not thelytoky?

[The15thMember]

Hey, Phil, who was the male that fertilized Mary, for her to have Jesus. Was that not thelytoky?

Since we are being overly technical, divine parthenogenesis perhaps, but not thelytoky, as thelytoky by definition creates a female.   

[Ben Framed]

Thanks Mr Van and Member for helping me swallow the hook!   

[Ben Framed]

Hey, Phil, who was the male that fertilized Mary, for her to have Jesus. Was that not thelytoky?

What does the Bible say Wally?

[van from Arkansas]

Hey, Phil, who was the male that fertilized Mary, for her to have Jesus. Was that not thelytoky?

ID, that was not thelytoky.

Blessings to you Sir.

Van

[Ben Framed]

Quote from: iddee
>Hey, Phil, who was the male that fertilized Mary, for her to have Jesus. Was that not thelytoky?


Wally I think Member got it right. Devine
The Bible says
Matthew 1:18-25 King James Version
18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
20 But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.
22 Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying,
23 Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife:
25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name Jesus.




,

[Ben Framed]

This has been interesting and I think each of you for responding and the education about queens and thelytoky. I Especially thank each of you for your patience as well. There are some "heavy hitters" that responded for whom I appreciate.

Now back to the original question lol.

Quoting Mr Van.
>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.

Thank you Mr Van, got it. They can, will, and do. Though rarely.

May I add any further debate is welcome as far as I am concerned. For my part, I am satisfied.




                                                                                                                                                                             .

[Michael Bush]

I've been handling queens for the last 46 years.  I've never been stung by a queen.  Jay Smith on queens stinging:

"Again the nature of the queen and the worker is entirely different. The queen will never sting a human being, while if you think the workers will not, you come with me. As stated, a queen will never sting anything but a rival queen. I might qualify that statement by saying a queen never stings anything but a queen, or what she thinks is a queen. I was stung by a queen once but I insist it was a case of mistaken identity, for she thought I was a queen. It happened thus: I had been requeening some colonies and in removing the old queens I killed them by pinching them between my thumb and finger. I had wiped my thumb and finger on my trouser leg. A virgin queen circled me a few times probably to adjust her bomb sights then made a pin-point landing on the spot where I had wiped my thumb and finger, and planted her sting in my leg. Yes, she thought I was a queen. While greatly appreciating the compliment, I would much prefer she would show her appreciation in a less militant manner. "--Jay Smith, Better Queens