One further tale to add to the 'carrying eggs' theme.

Several seasons ago we had a large spring colony in one of our out 
apiaries, which on first examination of the season turned out to be for 
some reason (not known) to be queenless. There was no brood, no evidence 
of recent brood, no pollen gathering, and a lot of 'queenless noise' 
from the bees.

Next time back we went to turf it out to reuse the box, only to find a 
nice perfect looking queen cell on one comb (no other cells or any brood 
present). Somewhat puzzled we left it alone and waited to see what would 
happen. Next time back it was hatched, the colony was orderly, and 
pollen was being stored in nice arcs, and large patches were open and 
polished for egg laying. We did not see or hunt for a virgin (time 
constraints). Then on the next visit there was good worker brood 
present, and sealing had just begun.

A good boost of hatching brood from powerful neighbours followed and 
them it went on to have a productive and satisfactory season.

I already hear the thelytoky (sp) shouts going up, and various complex 
solutions being advanced in minds across the globe, especially in small 
cellers..........

HOWEVER.........

This colony was all black bees. Classic northern European Blacks. No 
yellow coloured bees at all.

A couple of hives away there was a Hawaiian (Kona) Carniolan, and was a 
standard open mated production queen, which, as most who have used them 
will know, means a preponderance of yellow matings, and the workers are 
actually mainly crosses with Italians.

The new queen in the black colony was a yellow striper, and once its 
brood hatched it was apparent that it had become a 2nd generation Kona 
colony.

None of the Konas had swarmed or were near to swarming. The cell was 
raised in the black colony, and no manual transfers had taken place.

So, did the bees steal an egg from their near neighbour? Seems the most 
likely explanation.

If so, I wonder how common it is? Amongst bees where there is no obvious 
distinguishing trait it will never be noticed. This was a case where it 
was obvious the new queen was not of the original type and could not 
possibly have originated from the hive bees.

I personally doubt that it actually is common as to see a hopelessly 
queenless colony become queenright without beekeeper intervention is a 
rarity. We have seen it happen in other cases and assumed that for some 
reason we had missed a virgin or the declining colony had been taken 
over by an incoming swarm. However this was plainly not the case here.

-- 
Murray McGregor

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