Hi to all on BEE-L

Dave Hamilton wrote:
Could someone explain the mechanisms by which the
intercaste workers replace the EHB queen.  I realize that
these intercastes confuse the hive with a pheromone like
the queen pheromone, do they also lay viable eggs?  What
percentage of the eggs are worker/drone?  Is this also case
wherethe intercaste lays worker eggs but she (or do you say
it) hasn't been fertilized?  Are they always accepted as
the "new queen" or do they just fight better?  What about
the intercaste herself, how did she develop?

Reply:
You have two scenarios pictured above in your request Dave,
so let me try to seperate and explain as best I can from
over 17 years of working with this.

By the way I will be talking at the Alabama State
Beekeepers meeting on 21-22 Sept 2002 on this subject and
bringing video tapes I took in the 1980s to the meeting to
show what thelytoky looks like with workers fighting for
dominance and workers laying workerbee eggs. My dear friend
Bill Gafford invited Ed and me down there for the 105th
Anniv meeting.

But to get back to your request. Do not confuse small
groups of workers coming into a colony as a take over, for
this rarely happens in the real world to a good queen-right
colony. Bees, including drones, workers, and small
hand-size swarms do however go into small queenless
colonies and failing old queen colonies of lesser strength.

This happens in early spring and late fall as a natural
absorbtion and coming together that allows for continuation
of species. Here the small hand-sized swarms merely take
over queenless or soon to be queenless colonies and breath
new life back into them. The same with beekeepers seeing
hopelessly small queenless colonies, all of a sudden
produce a queen cell and brood begins again, because we all
know that they stole an egg!!!!!:>) actually probably a
good worker that drifted in. The main thng here is the old
queen must be gone or badly failing with NO phermone for
this to occur.

Actual thelytoky as I have seen it and filmed it is
different. It is the scenario of when a queen goes out to
mate and gets lost on her mating flight or eaten by a bird,
etc. Then there is nothing to carry on the hive for
continuance. Normally during the main season, there is no
problem, for there is enough brood left to raise another
queen.

 It does become a problem though if the season is early and
coming on with sporadic weather like mid-winter start-up,
and/or at the end of the active season when broodrearing is
shutting down.

When a colony then becomes queenless, due to loss of virgin
queen on mating flight (could also be squashed queen by the
way by careless beekeeper, not that accidents don't happen
in the spring or fall on hive checks for feed), first the
colony becomes confused sort of and workers are scattered
all over the frames of the colony, as if looking to find
the lost queen. You hear the distinctive cries of
queenlessness when the colony is disturbed or opened.

 Then within 4-7 days the workers start what I call tete
tete for dominance and in a way fighting with each
other.Workers will be seen going at each other with thier
mandibles and grasping each other and tugging as if to see
who can pull the hardest. Also you will see more than one
worker try to start laying eggs in cells, while at the same
time workers will be seen pulling their nestmate sisters of
of the cells in which they have inserted their abdomens, as
if to say, I will not allow you to do so!

After awhile, worker bees will be seen to play court to
worker bees starting to show dominance characteristcs, just
like playing court to a normal queen. When worker bees have
acquired this status, you will see them strutting around
just like queens and then going into queen cells just like
queens and laying eggs, sitting there not for seconds, but
for long minutes on end to lay just one egg, Sitting there
with their little wings spread and so majestic, something
to behold.

It is not the workers that go in and out in seconds that
are the thelytoky workers. It is the ones that sit for
minutes on end that are like little birds with their wings
on the outside of the cells that are the thelytoky queens.


The pattern layed is sort of a buckshot pattern of a
failing queen you see, but once seen you learn to recognize
it. Also few drones are present in the colonies for the
most part of a thelytoky hive, compared to an over
abundance in those that don't have the trait to any great
extent to produce results.

Time sequence is about 4-7days from mating flight loss or
loss of queen in fall (or all queen cells removed) for
queenless state with scattered bees to start.I would
estimate about two weeks for good laying thelytoky workers
to appear. Normally the process would be completed with
queen cell and new queen being reared within another week
or so and new queens out and mated in about 4-5 weeks total
average time.

Hope this helps answers your questions Dave.

Regards,

Dee A. Lusby








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