> Bob, my understanding was that the capensis clones killed the scut queen,
> and then the colony dwindled because the capensis laying workers simply
> could not produce enough brood to maintain the colony population.
Many hypothesis and the above is one.
Most researchers are careful and vague with hypothesis like:
Rapid queen supercedure by scut colonies.
or
supercedure by the bees ( scut or cape????)
Different amount of eggs per day capable by cape laying workers are around
with 200 eggs per day the most common. One could see once a real queen is
gone you would need 10 cape laying workers at capacity to keep up with the
old queen .
different guesses for time taken to collapse but most usually 3-5 months.
Lack of forager bees in these colonies is another hypothesis.
"The social organization of scut colonies appears to be pheromonally
disrupted by capensis workers , they simply self destruct " was a hypothesis
put forth in the Nebr paper.
another hypothesis is the capensis workers become like our laying worker
hives as they realize the hive is not being led by a real capensis queen
with strong pheromones.
what we do understand:
For sure the queen is removed & the hive starts a downward spiral.
bob
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm