-----Original Message-----

 William Morong writes
> I had never seen mother and daughter together, and now
>have seen two cases in a week.
James Kilty response
These would be prized for breeding by members of BIBBA over here.

I would like to add my bit:
Over here in Africa, with A.m. scutalata we have a few scenarios:
During a dearth the bees abscond and move (predominantly)in westerly
direction.  They settle on the trunk of a tree and along comes another swarm
and unites with them.  I have seen five such swarms amalgamating, whereas
Silberman in his book "Beekeeping in Zambia" found about a hundred (if my
memory is correct) queens in such a commune.  These bees stay together until
forage is found and then they split up again.
I have seen on a couple of occasions a reproductive swarm move into one of
my trap boxes followed the next day by an afterswarm from the same colony
move into the same box.  In the first case, the mother queen was in the
first swarm and a virgin daughter followed.  They stayed together for about
three months when the mother swarmed off again.  In the second observation
there were two afterswarms to go into the same trap box.  I don't know for
how long nor what happened to the mother and sister.
When doing bee removals, one of the best ways to ensure you keep the bees,
is by amalgamating with a weak swarm.  Otherwise the bees show their
objection to being forcibly removed from their home by absconding.

Eddy Lear
South Africa