Hi Dee

You try to infer that there are 7-10 possibly anarchistic workers in a 
hive, but the logic you are using is false...

You consider an 'unlimited brood nest' in '4-5 deeps' and a hive 
population of 70,000 workers.

Such an arrangement does not allow enough separation between the nest 
itself and the area where the anarchy is to take place, you may consider 
such an arrangement useful for your style of management, but the 
'chimney' shaped centre where brood is raised would contain a high 
pheromone load. This wide pheromone distribution and lack of distance 
would actually suppress anarchistic behaviour to lower levels than would 
be encountered in the natural situation of a more compact brood nest 
with honey storage arranged above.

> Also, with failing queens and therefore the hole for
> enlarging the seeing of such phenomania the odds also would
> go up.

Again with the hive arrangement that you describe, the lowering of queen 
pheromone as a queen ages, would have less effect than with a more 
compact nest. Your tall centrally placed brood combs would emit a 
considerably larger amount of brood pheromone and pheromones that had be 
absorbed by the wax because of the large surface area to volume ratio, 
so the pheromone repression on laying workers and/or anarchistic workers 
does not reduce as much with your 'unlimited system', so in turn the 
anarchistic behaviour actually shows up less.

You also try to imply that anarchy and thelytoky are useful fall back 
strategies, there are 'fall back' strategies, but they are 'last ditch' 
extreme strategies and there are other safety nets that come into play 
far more readily than anarchy and thelytoky... One very simple thing 
that has much more bearing on survivability of the species is the laying 
of more than one queen in a hive (for an extended period of weeks, 
months or years) this multiple queen phenomena exists at a level around 
a hundred times more prevalent than anarchistic workers.

> By the way was that egg stolen they used? Ever hear of
> that?

Yes I've heard of that and I have heard of a small number of cases that 
appear to be only explainable by egg moving. As egg moving is possible I 
reckon it happens, but what is important is the level of the activity, 
which is low... I can't put numbers on it, but it must be low or it 
would be noticed more by beekeepers and we would thus know more about it.


Regards & Best 73s, Dave Cushman, G8MZY
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman or http://www.dave-cushman.net
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