Evidently, virgin queens evoke the same or similar responses as mated queens, which seems to indicate that their capacity to control the colony is not dependent on their status as a laying or non-laying queen. If queen control is not directly linked to queen capacity or queen quality this would account for many things that beekeepers observe, such as non-supersedure of failing queens, supersedure of apparently normal queens, and the inhibition of queen cell building by virgin queens.
Quoted material:
There was
no significant difference between colonies
headed by intact mated or virgin queens.
For the mated queen group, colonies
whose queens lacked functional mandibular
or abdominal tergite glands constructed
significantly more (P < 0.05) queen cells
than did the intact control group (table II).
However, there were no significant differences
among the colonies headed by virgin
queens, normal or impaired. These colonies
performed like normal colonies
headed by intact, free-running mated
queens (table II).
we noted a considerable
variation in the numbers of queen
cells constructed both within and among
the treatment groups. This result is similar
to others (Fell and Morse, 1984; Winston
et al, 1989; Kaminski et al, 1990) and there
is no obvious explanation for the observed
variations.
Inhibition of queen cell construction in the Cape
honeybee, Apis mellifera capensis
LA Whiffler HR Hepburn
The last paragraph is particularly important. Honey bee colonies are not machines, and they do not respond the same as each other to the same environmental conditions. We should expect considerable variation among colonies, and not expect them to all perform the same like machines would. Further, there is considerable evidence to support the idea that much of this variation is not directly heritable. Each colony is a combination of the traits of the queen and a unique combination of drones, impossible to replicate in any reliable way.
PLB
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