This message was originally submitted with the email address of a previous writer quoted in plain text in an attribution line.
BEE-L LISTSERV hides emails from non-subscribers to protect members privacy from 'bots.
Writers are requested to please omit attribution lines, at at minimum edit out any email addresses or risk having their submission discarded without notice or comment.
--
It seems like mighty costly research to satisfy "curiosity".
1) I didn't say I wanted to do research on this, I asked if anyone knew of
any.
2) I had reasons for asking these questions:
a) A commercial beekeeper reports that - colonies brought inland from
CA right after almonds - so they'd arrive back home to cool/cold northern
state temps, do not really start their seasonal population growth and major
drone production until some time after they arrive back home. These
colonies only occasionally swarmed, did so at the expected time (mid-May through
end of June, early July at latest), and swarming could be headed off by
splits, adding supers, etc.
- colonies that went onto stone crops after almonds and stayed on the west
coast, arrived back home weeks later. These came back into the home state
with a large number of drones in the colonies. By swarm season, these
colonies had lots of drones. The beekeeper assumes that many of these drones
were OLDER (having been hatched from eggs in CA earlier in the season due
to the warmer weather in CA) compared to the colonies brought home earlier,
where weather delayed major drone production. The colonies that spent most
of the spring on the west coast, building large drone populations, were
extremely prone to swarming and splitting, adding empty supers, etc.
Nothing seemed to slow them down at all - they just left.
So, he wants to know why those colonies are so much more likely to swarm.
P.S. He runs thousands of colonies, has from more than 20 years. It's
not simply population size, or any easy to point to issue. He was told (by a
breeder, I think) that it was the presence of so many older drones, that
the drones were a factor.
b) The back to nature folks and some of the Top Bar hive books claim
drones affect, even regulate, all kinds of strange things, such as
temperature regulation and air flow.
Comes up in our classes, over and over.
So, its a matter to countering the misinformation - assuming it is
misinformation. I have a hard time believing that drones do much of anything
other than eating and hanging out hoping to get lucky.
But, I'd like to know where these ideas are coming from other than
speculation. So, I'm trying to avoid doing research to prove that much of this is
just conjecture. But, the drone advocates are vocal and can persuade
other beekeepers - much like the Food Grade Mineral Oil or the Menthol Cough
Drop approaches to varroa control. Neither proved out, but lots of folks
lost hives blindly following the vocal advocates; who never let the
absence of data slow them down.
Bee-L was formed to be an Informed Discussion - I'm asking for
Information.
Jerry
***********************************************
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
|