Pete:

I can clearly see the bees polishing cells for her to lay in but they have never moved any eggs from inside the cage to the comb immediately outside of it. This would involve a bee carrying an egg a very short distance. So far there is simply no indication that they do this. Maybe they do it once in a great while, but no sign of it happening.

___

Given what others have posted on this topic, do you think that moving eggs could be like hygiene?  Namely, there could be genetics involved that span the range of "moving eggs" to "no eggs moved"?


Has that colony dwindled, or are they "holding their own"?


I wonder why any queen would lay an egg in a queen cup.  She can't be that "stupid"....???  The cell has a completely different orientation and the goal is to supplant her.  What triggers would prompt a queen to support supercedure....the same ones that support swarming?  Swarm cells as we all know are on the bottom edges of combs.  Do queens have different behaviors as they crawl around the bottoms of combs with queen cell cups, so that they'd lay in them?


What "motivates" a queen to lay in a queen cell cup?


Fun to think about.


Christina

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