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Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology

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From:
Richard Cryberg <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 17 Apr 2016 11:55:05 +0000
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"The temperature probes from breeder one in the shipment with lower viability (USPS) recorded a low spike in temperature of 8°C for two hours (46°F). All other shipments showed temperature values within an acceptable range of 15–35°C (59F-95°F)."

I think most of us have seen this very limited and not particularly well controlled data.  I am not aware of anyone taking queens and holding at either high or low temps under lab conditions and showing what low or high temps in combination with duration time kill sperm.  If low or high temps kill sperm in queens do they also kill sperm in drones?  Doing lab tests on drones is likely a lot more attractive as they are dirt cheap while queens are expensive.  You really need to test ten specimens I suppose to get real data.  Test one and who knows if it went into the experiment with dead sperm?

It seems to me that hive temps must swing pretty widely at times.  We know that winter clusters drop to about 60 deg in the center for long periods.  Does the queen reside in the center of the cluster all winter and subsist exclusively on feed from warmer bees?  The center of the cluster is generally on empty comb is it not?  I hear occasional stories of hives with bees so cold none are moving and then on warming they seem ok.  Under such a condition it seems the queen must get abnormally cold.  Can she still function after such a temp excursion?  Or how about a hive in a desert where day time temps can get well over 100 deg?  Can the hive manage to still keep the brood nest at 92? Is the queen and all drones confined to the brood nest under such conditions?

It seems to me there is a lot that we do not know about queens and temp.

Dick
" Any discovery made by the human mind can be explained in its essentials to the curious learner."  Professor Benjamin Schumacher talking about teaching quantum mechanics to non scientists.   "For every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, neat and wrong."  H. L. Mencken

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