For Michael Traynor:
Dees has a good point that "For smaller queens to be
produced, though here thought to be bad, it actually
might not be, especially if the larger are not making
it."
My bees are regressed to about 5.0 mm, all my bees are
ferals and are open mated. I believe that assortative
mating has increased mating frequency with the more
fit smaller sized ferals in my area, and along with
that came some excellent genetics. I'm still in the
beginning stages of testing for hygienic traits in my
bees, but the first two rounds of testing indicate
that 60% of my colonies are hygienic... and I haven't
even began to select for the trait yet! This when the
experts have stated that without selecting, you should
expect to find 10% of your colonies to be hygienic.
I have a citation below on the link that supports what
Dee, myself and others are seeing. It is powerful
evidence that seems to suggest that there is a strong
ecological and evolutionary tie between small cell
bees and that of the smaller ferals with superb
genetics, due to assortative mating preferences. The
key to tapping this valuable resource is to regress to
small cell. Larger queens do not succeed well in
taping these genetics due to assortative mating.
The citation states:
"larger drones mated the large OD models, and smaller
drones mated the small OD models."
"It is possible that differential mechanical and
tactile cues resulted in assortative mating by drones.
The drone's first two pairs of legs grasp the model
abdomen dorsally, while the last pair of legs grasp it
laterally and ventrally (Gary and Marston, 1971)."
"Size matching could occur through cues for mounting
position. If drones use alignment cues from the
anterior portion of the queen, small drones could be
too far forward on the queen abdomen and the large
drones too far back for copulation to be completed."
"No matter what proximate factors account for
assortative mating by drones, this mating pattern
could have powerful ecological and evolutionary
consequences. A limited degree of positive assortative
mating has been observed between subspecies of Apis
mellifera (Kerr and Bueno, 1970; Koeniger et al.,
1989)."
"We have shown that drones are extremely variable in
size. In one study drones of sympatric African and
European subspecies differed in body mass (Rinderer et
al., 1985); therefore, it is likely that drone size
has a heritable component."
http://balder.prohosting.com/~starrier/SizeRelatedMatingPreferences.html
Michael, here's the link to the online beekeeping
videos I promised you. You need to search
'beekeeping' in the search bar to the left.
The drone removal method is in there somewhere,,,
http://mkat.iwf.de/index.asp?Language=en
Best Wishes,
Joe
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