Hi Allen

> The debate raged here a few years back, and at that time, I
> actually joined IBRA and paid for a literature search but
> could find *nothing* to substantiate the claim.  Apparently
> no one has investigated this in anything approaching a
> scientific manner.

I agree there is no definite proof, so I will explain how I came to my
position of holding such an opinion...

There is plenty of evidence that the bees raise queens from larvae that are
already 'old' by the time that decisions are made to raise queens from them,
purely by inference from emergence timing.

We know from calibrated tests that queens raised from different starting
points in their development time, vary in performance, with the best being
those fed as queens from the first feed.

Therefore the bees do not select the best possible quality queen. That being
so we have to look for a mechanism that fits the facts that we know.

Whatever conclusion that we come to, stems from the premise that whatever
the reason, it is good for long term survival and that the prevalence of
this reason is due to the degree of success of such a strategy.

The selection of a strategy by bees is not a 'logical' process, but a
fitness of purpose one. So under marginal conditions (marginal conditions
have a stronger effect), those colonies that go for the shorter time to
produce a queen have a better survival rate and re-enforce the old larvae
selection process. The subsequent supercedure of these scrub queens further
enhances this survival rate and so the two features become linked together
in the strain that survives best.

I came to these conclusions having knowledge of supersedure traits in my
local AMM bee stock that are linked to multiple queens, long bee and queen
life and local mating. Such traits in bees from my area are much stronger
than are reported in other parts of the world and are fundamental in long
term survival in an area that is unfavourable for queen mating most of the
time.



Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
Fall Back M/c, Build 5.02 (stable)

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