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Mon, 31 Jul 2006 21:07:40 -0400 |
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mark berninghausen wrote:
> What circumstances in nature would prompt a worker bee to move
> and egg? Do other insects move already layed eggs?
>
Ants do it all the time. Sometimes I'll disturb a nest of tiny brown
ants under a bottom board or inner cover, and you'll see them hurrying
off with eggs in their jaws. I've seen colonies of larger ants in my
yard moving their nest lock, stock, and barrel from one place to
another, including eggs. One aspect of this nest-moving behavior I found
fascinating was that many of the workers were carrying other ants which
had curled themselves up into a ball; when disturbed, the carrying ant
dropped it's load and they both scurried off. Not relevant to the
discussion, but pretty interesting just the same!
I've been following this topic with great interest. I remember last
winter when Murray posted his message about a hopelessly queenless hive
(apparently) requeening itself with an egg stolen from another hive and
I was fascinated by the implication of such behavior. I also found the
site Predag posted about bell-shaped cells equally fascinating. I
decided to investigate the matter. It turns out very few people have
actually ever seen a queen laying an egg in a queen cup. Francois Huber
was of the opinion that bees do not move eggs.
The prevailing consensus is that bees either do not or cannot move eggs
without damaging them, but there are people who believe otherwise. I'm
one of them. I think it's uncommon, even rare, but I see no reason why,
if bees can remove eggs, which they can, why they can't move them as well.
Probably the best opinion on the matter I got came from Tony Jadczak
whose opinion I value highly. I had occasion to ask him how eggs get
into queen cups when he was inspecting my apiary this past spring. His
answer? "Who cares!" :)
George-
Whitefield, Maine
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