Hi Michael

> THEN AS SHE RUNS OUT AND CHANGES DRONE SPERM
> CREATING HALF SISTERS IN THE HIVE DO THE BEES
> SEPARATE IN THE HIVE.  GROUPS OF BEES SEPARATE
> TO THE SAME DRONE FATHER,

The sets of sisters have some mechanism for recognising kinship, but we do
not know exactly how.

There is much conjecture that the kinship groups perform, or are suited to,
different ranges of tasks (division of labour) this also requires much more
work to sort out.

There is conjecture that multiple mating has developed in order to further
this division of labour, again more work needed.

The mixing of sperm in the spermatheca is more thorough than hitherto
thought, but exactly how many sperm are in each small clump will have to
wait until someone takes a volume of sperm and DNA is extracted from every
individual sperm, before that can be answered with certainty. However the
clumps are small enough that your question...

> DO THE BEES SEPARATE IN THE HIVE.  GROUPS OF BEES
> SEPARATE TO THE SAME DRONE FATHER, THUS
> CAUSING SUPERCEDURE AND SWARMING?

can be answered... All drone lines are represented in roughly equal amounts,
but in any case the ratios of drone line expression remain the same as when
the sperm was originally mixed after mating (at the time the excess was
expelled).

Thus there are many 'groups of bees' (= to the mating frequency) rather than
a couple of rivals.


Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net

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