From: "Bob Harrison" >" I checked once a week by putting the queen on a
empty drawn comb with a
> special queen excluder on both sides. Removed her 24 hours later and
counted
> eggs....... One reason for low egg production for many of the queens was
being picky
> about the cleanliness of cells, going over areas they had already laid
eggs
> in looking in each cell AGAIN , being groomed by attendants  and simply
> wondering around the comb".

These two extracts from Bob's observations show the difficulty in conducting
small scale experiments that truly mimic the conditions in a large
undisturbed colony.  A queen (so I believe) will only lay in cells that have
been cleaned and polished by house bees.  Patches of such cells are easy to
see - they gleam - and when they start to appear it can indicate for example
that a newly mated queen is about to come into lay.  IMHO just restricting a
queen to a suddenly introduced drawn comb will not immediately provide the
queen with laying space - the nurse bees have to finish working elsewhere
and come to prepare the cells first.    Secondly, I believe queens lay in
bursts, not continuously, with a period for regeneration after each burst.
(Queens vary in the number of egg-tubes they have developed, and can lay
only one egg per tube in the fixed time it takes for an egg to develop in a
tube, which implies poorly developed queens can run out of ready eggs if
they lay too quickly and have to rest until the next batch is ready).   This
is the reason, IMHO, why I get larger colonies when using a good queen on
larger frames - the queen has sufficient space to lay out the full number of
eggs she is capable of in each burst, which results in the observable larger
brood patches.  But, broadly, a queen will only lay out a large patch if it
also happens to be warmed by being beside another comb well filled with
brood.  (It may not be warmth that is vital so much as high enough humidity
to avoid tyhe eggs drying out). A third complication is that (according to
research somewhere that I cannot now find),  not all the eggs laid by a
queen are accepted and reared by house bees, some get eaten, possibly a
tasty snack to a young bee short of protein.  Some eggs may be rejected as
defective - but also (so I have read),  since the queen has mated with 9+
drones, there are 9+ 'tribes' within the colony, and an individual bee gives
preference to raising eggs that will mature into full sisters, and may
reject the competition. (This implies that a nurse bee can somehow recognise
an egg with the genes of a full sister - seems incredible, but a lamb can
recognise its mother sheep in a flock that to humans all look alike).

So I wonder if more valid observations have to be made somehow in less
disturbed conditions in some sort of full sized observation hive - or else
by photoing comb sides in a standard hive every 3 days and measuring the
changes in area of sealed brood .  There must have been many attempts.
Anyone know references?  I can point only to the brief account of Nolan's
1925 experiments,  given in E F Phillips, Beekeeping, revised 1928 - the
best colony showed 1587 eggs per day in 1921 and 1528 in 1920.

Robin Dartington

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::