> From:    Jerry J Bromenshenk <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: egg laying after swarming
>
> Jerry wrote:
>
> This may not be a laying worker.  Contrary to popular notion, we find
> that queens in small colonies often lay 2 or more eggs in a cell.
> Not quite as scattered as a laying worker, but otherwise much the
> same.  After the new brood emerges, this stops.  I base this
> observation on several hundred units closely monitored for our
> research over a 20  year period.
 
This is an extremely interesting piece of information. Some recent
research has shown that the  laying worker activity seen in cape
bees, where workers  lay eggs that develop innto workers is not
restricted to capensis, but can be founnd in other bees such as
scutellata as well. (apparently in mozambique or tanzania or some
such place it was found that laying workers with a frequency of 1 in
a 1000 could lay worker eggs)
 
In the case of our bees, when one gets laying workers in a swarm it
is usually from a hive which has requeened. Here, once a queen has
died and workers have commenced queen rearinng they begin to lay
eggss as well. (hence one can have a strong hive without a queen but
with queen cells being produced right up until when a queen
hatches. What I have noticed however is that this laying worker
activity (detected by badly placed eggs in largenumbers) decreases
rapidly after the queen beings laying. Up until this point it
continues. (one can tell laying cape workers by looking in worker
combs - if it is a laying worker laying the eggs they lie flat and at
all angles often up to ten in a cell - if it is a queen all eggs
face the same way and point out of the cell at  a slight angle)
 
Apparently in EHB's however worker  policing stops all (supposedly)
diploid eggs.
 
> Question:  Does the queen finally figure it out?  or  Does the queen
 
Or does something in queen pheremone make the bees more deceitful?
 
> continue to put too many eggs in some of the cells, and the workers
> remove the extras?  As the colony grows in size, it has more
> workers, and more "hands" to do miscellaneous chores.
 
> Another case of my favorite notion: The bees didn't read the books.
 
But I certainly wish I could read the way they do!!  Then would not
have to worry about AATGGC ETC!!
 
Keep well
 
Garth
Garth Cambray           Camdini Apiaries
Grahamstown             Apis mellifera capensis
Eastern Cape Prov.
South Africa
 
Time = Honey
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