Murray McGregor <[log in to unmask]> Wrote:
 
 
Hi Murray and All
 
First thanks Murray for an interesting post. I orignally posted the
idea just because I thought of it, and wondered to myself if, just
like in South Africa (where the cape bee has only recently become a
problem) if there could be abackground population of the bees that
will be selected for amongst other things because they are resistant
to varroa. I believe actually they have been kept in many areas in
europe including germany and britain.
 
 
>In the first of the two articles it appears to assume that because
>of the presence of a laying Cape worker in a European colony that
>any queen raised the following year WILL be pure Cape. I don't know
>enough about the South African situation to know if this is the
>case, and would appreciate clarification as to whether that is
>definitely so, but it seems to me that the percentage risk of the
>new queen being Cape would only be broadly in proportion to the
>number of eggs the queen and laying worker were producing, and even
>then only in an emergency cell situation (which includes deliberate
>grafting), although, in the presence of a laying worker it would be
>difficult to get these cells drawn. I don't know if the laying
>worker ever deliberately lays in swarm cells or not.
 
The problem is more that the laying worker will lay eggs whether a
queen is present or not. Should the orignal queen for some reason
die, she will not be superceded as laying workers already exist and
emit more queen pheremones than the host hives queen would have.
Hence the laying workers will raise a new queen when they see fit.
The cape worker bee will develop ovaries in the presence of any queen
except a cape queen  - and even then I have seen a number of hives
with a queen and laying workers up in the supers.
 
The other thing to bear in mind is that a laying worker hive is not
actually that. It is more like a laying workers hive - with lots all
laying away and making a big mess and one gets a brood pattern that
looks not unlike the foulbroods - so often the hives would be easily
identified and blatted. Which countries have rulings on burning hives
with the foulbroods and other diseases when it is known that one can
use antibiotics??
 
>If only a small proportion of these colonies went on to produce Cape
>queens AND remain genetically pure (incidentally, what will they
>mate with?), then the total impact here would quickly stabilise with
>slightly increased winter losses. If ALL do then we definitely will
>have a problem. However, a diploid egg from a worker must surely be
>effectively a clone of that worker, and thus be the product of both
>the original Cape queen and whatever drone was responsible for
>fertilising the egg which went on to produce the laying worker, and
 
Yes, but they have the ability to reproduce through workers alone, so
slowly the number of cape bees hiding in hives will increase. Some of
these will produce queens and in some cases these queens will produce
drones. A cape bee drone, being haploid is a pure cape bee drone.
There is some belief that there is quite a lot of incompatibility
between the two bee groups (african and european) so a hybrid would
be unhealthy, but a true breeding bee not. African bees also have
more competitive drones.
 
>thus, if matings are with European drones, the bees will become
>genetically more and more dilute with each passing generation. The
>absence of difficulties with Cape bees in the UK today tends to make
>me believe that natural selection would eliminate the problem.
 
But has anybody ever looked?
 
 
>Obviously the first article is from a source which knows a great
>deal more about the Cape bee than I ever will and is talking from a
>position both of knowledge and experience, but I feel that calm
>reflection on a percieved problem is probably more appropriate than
>starting a scare
 
I actually know very little about the whole thing, and was just
expressing an opinion that is founded on my beliefs about introducing
species to area where they don't belong  - and that sometimes it
is less embarrasing to identify a problem than just to let it go away
until everyone assumes that a hive which dies out in winter but was
perfectly healthy the rest of the year is normal.
 
And it is also possible that a laying worker or two could overwinter
in a healthy hive and then when spring comes and swarms happen, it
would take over a bit.
 
Sorry to have seemed alarmist. Was just thinking.
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
PS - thanks for the nice reply Murray! I enjoyed it.
---
Garth Cambray       Kamdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800mm annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology    Rhodes University
 
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this post in no way
reflect those of Rhodes University.