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Discussion of Bee Biology <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 30 Sep 1997 17:57:20 -0700
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At 09:03 PM 9/29/97 +0100, you wrote:
>This is my first year with bees.
>
>Recently I got assistance in introducing a new docile type queen to replace
>a 1995 queen. However, only three days after introducing the new queen, I
>opened up the hive to retrieve the Butler Cage and had a bit of a look around.
>
>Afterwards I was told by a beekeeper that I should have stayed away from the
>hive for 6 days, otherwise the bees might reject the queen.
>
>So now I just have to wait until I return from my vacation on 17Th October
>to see have I a problem.
>
>My question is this: Are the bees not behaving against their own interests
>by killing the queen?
>
>If the hive does not have young eggs. they have no means of raising a new
>queen. They are thus faced with the prospect of laying workers which can
>produce drones only. Are they not thus on their way to extinction?. Can
>anybody give the rationale for their action (if that is what they have done).
>
>One other question - should I have made the hive queenless some hours or
>days  before I introduced the new queen?. I did not do this - I removed the
>old queen just a few minutes before I inserted the new one.
>
>Thanks for help
>
>
>Sincerely
>
>Tom Barrett
>Computer Software Solutions Ltd
>49 South Park
>Foxrock
>Dublin 18
>Ireland
>
>e mail: [log in to unmask]
>
  Hello Tom, First I would like to congratulate you on entering a most
enjoyable hobby.
I've had some 16 years experience in bees, with 6 years experience in
commercial queen production.
I would not worry so much about your colony while your away on vacation.
Just because you peeked
around, is no guarantee that the bees will automatically kill her.
  Tom as to your question about whether the bees are acting against their
own interest, you must
realize that "pheromones" play an extremely important role in a honeybees
behavior.  When you kill
a queen, the bees don't run around thinking "The Queen is dead! The Queen is
dead!, What are we going to
do?"  Actually what happens is that the Queen secretes her pheromones while
she is in her colony.
The more she lays, the level of these pheromones is increased and the when
she starts slowing down,
the level of her pheromones decreases. When you kill a Queen, then the
substance is stopped abruptly.
The honeybees notice this decrease in pheromones and begin raising emergency
Queens.
  The older a Queen gets, she starts to dwindle in her egg laying.  When you
replace her with a ripe
young Queen, their is an imbalance in the level of Queen pheromone from the
Old and New Queen.  So,
the honeybees are alerted to a "Stranger in the hive".  Their urgency to
raise a new queen is being
pitted against their ugency to repel the intruder.  Most of the time, when
introducing Queens in cages,
the New Queens level of pheromone has decreased from not laying, and her
pheromone is gradually being
accepted by the colony. I hope that this isn't too confusing.
  Basically, your beekeeping friend is right, you should leave the cage in
for about 6 days. This
way your not interrupting the above process.
        To answer your 2nd question, I would recommend killing the Old Queen
4 days before you
place the new queen in the colony. This lets you know if their is another
Queen in the colony,
makes the bees more ready to accept a "stranger". Some strains of bees will
not accept different
Queens from other races.  For instance, I have a lot of hybrid bees that
will not accept a Buckfast
queen if their lives depended on it.  It's strange but its true.
 
        Well I hope this is useful.
Sincerely
 
Jeff Barnett
Jeff Barnett
[log in to unmask]
retired(for now) queen producer.

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