Hi Aaron & all

In the years since Aaron was at Gormanston, the Drone Congregation Areas
have been visited many times and a good deal of video footage has been taken
of the activity of the drones close up to the lure.

I have been (and still am ) attempting to get all of this footage into one
place so that a tape or dvd can be made of it.

There are indications that the process is not 'first come first served', it
is difficult to be objective about it, but there seems to be some sort of
queueing or pecking order.

I have seen two low level mating flights (waist high or just above) of
queens at Gormanston, pursued by comets of drones, on two successive years
in the same place (near the flagpoles).

> Aaron Morris - longing to go back to Gormanston!

You really should submit to your longing! Bring some other B-listers as well
:-)

There is another aspect to the selectivity that is possible in mating, this
was much talked about around thirty years ago, but I have not heard much
about it recently and that is the ability of a queen to deliberately mate
with (or ignore) a particular drone in the bunch.


Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net

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