Hi all

I am doing some queen rearing experimental work in South Africa and am
having some difficulty.  It is Autumn now and the Eucalyptus is just
coming into flower.  Night temperatures do not drop much below 7 degrees
C, daytime at about 25 degrees C.  I performed splits on the hives in
question, taking the queenright halves away to another location (230km
away).  3 days after removing the queens, I inspected for and removed
queen cells.  Instead of grafting I cut portions of comb containing new
eggs from a hive of choice and secured them downward facing in the middle
of the brood nest of these cell builders.  Usually when I do this with
capensis hives, the bees build queen cells from this cut comb without
problem.  This time however, the bees turned the eggs into workers instead
of queens.  I removed these worker cells and repeated the experiment.
Once again, the bees made only workers and not queens.  All the time, I
was ensuring that no other queen or queen cells were in the hive.  The
bees even made "dummy cups" but did not lay in them, but refused to turn
the imported eggs into queens.  What could cause this behaviour?  Could it
just be the environmental conditions?  Should I hence repeat the work in
spring?
What should I do with these bees that now have no queen, given that South
Africa does not have the package bee industry that the rest of the world
does.

Many thanks
Paul Collett
Rhodes University Department of Entomology/ Makana Meadery
Grahamstown
South Africa
A.m. capensis
A.m. scutellata

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::