Hi Peter (Edwards)

> I am just wondering if a temporary situation would be possible in a 
> colony, where a large proportion of the workers were from one patriline 
> but a large proportion of the brood was from a different one.

This situation may occur for a few hours, even days, and may skew things 
a bit, but the balance between patrilines both in adult and larval 
populations is going to be maintained in the main.

Colonies produced with a predominance of one patriline are 'demoralised' 
(whatever that really means) and less able to perform any colony duties 
as well as colonies with a high number of patrilines.

> Presumably a high number of matings by the queen is advantageous because 
> there will be more patrilines in the colony, but each will have a 
> smaller population?

The larger numbers of patrilines give rise to a greater ability to 
specialise, each patriline has its own subset of abilities which allow 
those that are the best undertakers to do their job, while those that 
are best at detecting varroa in sealed cells will do theirs and so on.

The more patrilines there are, the more finely tuned can be the colonies 
workforce.

-- 
Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://melliferabees.net Email: [log in to unmask]
Short FallBack M/c, Build 7.21/2.01
Son of ORAC M/c, Build 5.o1/2.o1

****************************************************
* General Information About BEE-L is available at: *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm   *
****************************************************