> >When queen is separated from part of hive / brood with excluder the
> situation is abnormal for bees so I think its quite logical that these
> laying workers use this situation for their benefit. And the other workers
> are not so keen in removing the eggs as they do normally.
>

Ari, I was as skeptical as you.  I've often seen eggs placed in queen cell
cups, but they were always placed as though laid by a queen--not
transferred.

As far as laying workers, they lay only unfertilized eggs, which result in
drones, not queens.  Laying workers are apparently relatively common in
EHB, compared to thelytokious workers that can lay fertile eggs.  Winston
was not talking about unfertilized eggs--he was talking about cells that
developed into queens.

>
> >This is a survival mechanism for bees, how to pass on genes when problems
> with queens.
>

That is a strong supposition, with little supportive evidence.  It
certainly wouldn't be a survival mechanism for any bee, but perhaps for its
genes.  But even that supposition is weak, since the stunted drones
produced by laying workers have little chance of ever outcompeting normal
drones in the DCA's.

>
> > Many [studies] tell that workers are capable of making egg, also diploid
>> eggs.   I have not found study that would have eliminated this factor in
>> 'egg moving' so I have hard time believing that bees move eggs. I am happy
>> to change my view based on evidence.
>>
>
My own review of the literature suggests that in European races of bees,
that thelytoky is quite rare.  The multiple cells with female larvae found
by Winston on short order after dequeening strongly suggests that they were
not all laid by a thelytokious worker.

Even more damning of the thelytoky hypothesis, is that every single study
that I've seen has found that the spontaneous appearance of fertilized
larvae ONLY OCCURS WHILE EGGS OR YOUNG LARVAE FROM THE ORIGINAL QUEEN ARE
PRESENT.  If thelytoky were indeed taking place, it would be expected to
continue even after the original queen's eggs/young larvae were gone.
Since spontaneous female larvae in cells cease one the queen's larvae age,
this observation appears to refute the thelytoky hypothesis.

>I use a lot of queenless starts. I see sometimes eggs in them  (in queen
cups) , and I have always thought that it's the workers. There is no frames
with eggs moved into these starts.

Have any of those cells ever produced a viable queen?

> They do make "stand-by" supercedure cells and when they need them from a
sudden
queen loss, the movement of eggs might be necessary or at least an
option.  Otherwise
why have the emergency cells in the first place?

A very astute observation, Bill.

And yes Aaron, likely many of us have made observations similar to yours,
and scratched out heads as to how to explain, other than eggs/larvae being
moved.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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