Hi Mike & all

> Different castes behave differently than others.
> The queen lays in cups, and one caste cares
> for them, and as they mature, other castes tear
> them down...to maintain status quo???

I am assuming that you are using the word caste to indicate a sister
grouping that was the result of sperm from a particular drone.

Your feeling may well be right, there is quite a bit of behaviour that stems
from the genetic differences within the groups of sisters in the hive...
This is only fairly recently being pursued.

One thing that has been bugging me is how do sisters recognise each other?,
how do workers discern the difference in genetic make-up of a queen from
another strain of bees?

Are these mechanisms the same or are we looking at some sort of visual
recognition as we might use to recognise two individual humans as sisters?



 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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