In message <[log in to unmask]>, Allen Dick
<[log in to unmask]> writes
>My
>understanding has always been that a retinue -- when it is observed, which
>often
>it is not -- is made up simply of bees that are nearby when the queen is
>working, and not bees that make a career of following and serving the queen.
>Have I been missing something?
I doubt very much. Watching bees in an observation hive suggests to me
that the queen is largely ignored and the queen even ignores bees on the
frame except to push them out of the way to get to a cell. When she
stops laying, the bees immediately next to her turn to form the ring we
associate with grooming and feeding. After a few seconds of this she
gets on with her job and they get on with theirs. I have never seen bees
following her. They seem like 2 separate operations until some signal
must pass to initiate the circle. After a few such cycles, I have seen
the queen disappear into a corner and be surrounded by a cluster for
quite a lot longer - presumably to incubate her as well - and presumably
a different signal passes to make this happen. Fascinating.

I teach (until someone tells me otherwise) that as the workers age, new
propensities arise as glands mature and later atrophy so new tasks are
possible. The worker wanders around and when a task needs to be done
that she can do, she will do it; like cleaning cells within seconds of
hatching or grooming or feeding queens and each other. I always ask
novices watching a frame and children (or adults) looking into an
observation hive to follow a newly hatched bee to see what it does.
People are fascinated - as I always am -  the same with the queen. I
teach that bees movement has a high random component (like the queen
laying), but the tasks put certain requirements on the movements - such
as eating pollen and honey to make brood food and to get back into the
brood area to keep it warm following the larval pheromones and so on.

So, only bees within a narrow age range are suitable for attending the
queen to *feed* her - but if she's not laying, she won't need much feed.
I like the anthropocentric idea of morale though. Surely they travel
better with *any* worker bees and the worker bees respond well to
travelling with queens.

The beauty of random movement plus a few instincts as parameters (limits
and requirements) is that with thousands of bees and good communications
you get an entity of a sort a bit like a multi-celled animal with mobile
cells. Very beautiful to observe with informed but naive wonder.

By the way, to change the subject completely, has anyone come across
bees that nip your fingers, perhaps as a precursor to stinging? Is this
tendency associated with grooming mites? One of my colleagues reports it
regularly and I am just starting to notice it.
--
James Kilty