Hi All
 
I have recieved a number of posts about something I metnioned about
combining what we here in A.m.capensis country call a laying worker
hive.
 
Normal bees, ie A.m.everything else can develop laying workers that
lay drone eggs.
 
Our bees here, develop laying workers that lay clone eggs. IE every
egg they lay is a copy of themselves and is a fully fledged femal
worker bee. As you can see this has a number of important problems.
 
If you get a swam and the queen does not get caught, you end up with
a hive that has  brood but not enought to grow. It draws comb even,
forages for pollen, and can even swarm. Sometimes as the LW gets old
they will swarm and a new queen will be raised. This is cool. More
often than not one ends up with a sill foul smelling hive that is
docile and stupid. I hate laying workers.
 
But: if any other sub-species of bee should be in the area of a
A.m.capenis hive, if it's queen should die, or get weak, a capensis
worker will be brought in to substitute her as they smell more queen
like, the colony will be capensised and die of largely. Hence
beekeepers in the transvaal have had to kill of  thousands and
thousands of contaminated hives because of migratory beekeepers
taking hives up there.
 
So: the queen is not the only egg layer!
 
Keep well
 
Garth
 
 
---
Garth Cambray       Kamdini Apiaries
15 Park Road        Apis melifera capensis
Grahamstown         800ml annual precipitation
6139
Eastern Cape
South Africa               Phone 27-0461-311663
 
3rd year Biochemistry/Microbiology    Rhodes University
In general, generalisations are bad.
Interests: Flii's and Bees.