Hi:

We have many years of data regarding rates of supercedure in commercial bee
operations in the Northwestern states - marked queens, 10-12 colonies per
apiary, many apiaries, many years.

Queen supercedure happens far more frequently, at least in our part of the
world, than most realize or recognize, including the beekeepers.  15-20% of
the queens superceding within any year in any apiary, during the pre-mite
years, were common.  And this was in operations that re-queen yearly or at
least every two years.  Small research hives, post-mite years, with mite
treatment and aggressive inspection - supercedure drops to 5-10% (new
queens) - after we've culled for the initial queen rejections, etc.

We've found that setting up any experiment with marked queens and getting
through a season with all of the marked queens still present at the end of
the trials is almost impossible.  The number of queens lost may be small,
but there's always some supercedure.

I can't speak to comb orientation and queen supercedure.  Whether that has
any effect or not - I've no data.  I would suggest that everyone with
access to a feral colony examine the combs.  Is Dee's observation
universal, or is it regional?  In other words, has any one else looked for
the configuration she describes in unmanaged colonies?

I'm a skeptic about universal statements.  I've found trials that say that
if given a choice, bees orient combs in a manner that reflects geomagnetic
fields -- but these same trials found that if the cavity isn't shaped in
such a manner as to facilitate this orientation, then bees don't follow the
fields. On the other hand, Peter says he found a question/answer report
that says no, bee's don't orient with these fields, not ands, ifs or buts.

My casual observations over 30+ years - natural comb is built in every
orientation imaginable - there doesn't seem to be a set pattern, except
that bees usually place a comb across the entrance (perpendicular to the
way most bee boxes are built -- but we've had lots of discussion about this
on Bee-L with our friends from Canada).  I've seen a lot of cross-linked
combs, star-shaped configurations, etc.

Now, things that I do know from our data that are associated with supercedure:

1) Use of chemicals to drive bees from honey supers
2) Addition of lots of empty supers during a nectar flow
3) Environmental stressors  - lack of space, over-heating, agri- and
industrial chemicals inside the hive (volatiles in the air inside the hive)
and (this is a guess, the others are based on data - mite density).

Cheers

Jerry


Jerry J. Bromenshenk
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http://www.umt.edu/biology/bees