>Is this a new trend in monarchies? The latest social bee fad? Is every
>hive
>suppose to have two queens and we have been doing it wrong?
 
Our southern imported red fire-ants have recently developed strains or
races  that have multiple queens.  Reports of interconnected nests
covering as much as 20 acres  (!) have been in the press lately.
 
If this related hymenopteran species can do that, why not bees too?
 
Of course, fire-ants have been for years under some selection pressure
from humans trying to eliminate them, nest by nest, with various poisons.
 
 
 
Walter Weller
Post Office Box 270
Wakefield, Louisiana  70784
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