Hello All,
I was very busy during a period of the drone/queen raising debate for me and
could not answer on one point made.

One of the posters talked about about the sperm is ALWAYS mixed in the
queens spermatheca..

Research done in the 1950's in the U.S. found mixing did not always happen
and in fact many times sperm remained packed in layers.

If you run in certain apiaries many different strains of bees the fact
becomes quite evident. especially is you run both dark & light colored bees.

I have observed colonies which been gentle become aggressive over a period
of weeks. Colonies using large amounts of propolis suddenly stop doing so. A
queen producing light colored workers start producing dark or mixed color
workers.

It is my opinion and of many others that as the sperm of one drone is used
up the sperm of the next is used and is responsible for what we are seeing .
The old books say the drone sperm is always in layers but I do believe some
mixing takes place but not sure or sure even researchers could give a
percent of the time.

The fact makes judging of future breeder queens from large numbers of
production colonies difficult. Breeder queens selected in the late summer
may be producing a completely different egg to graft with the next spring
(in other words a different drone father). If one finds an unusual queen the
best time to use her as a breeder is right away *in my opinion*.

Comments?

Sincerely,
Bob Harrison

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
-- Visit www.honeybeeworld.com/BEE-L for rules, FAQ and  other info ---
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::