wrote in message
...
Sacha wrote:
He needs to ask the bee-keeping group this but from what I recall, the
two hives would supply their own queens by forming queen cells, if the
workers are old enough and not mainly brood. That way, there is no
danger of the queen being killed off because she's one of their own.
They do this queen cell producing naturally anyway.

But ... there's no queen, so no-one to lay an egg to turn into a queen?

snip

I am assuming that you would have to move some brood cells across with the
new colony.
As fas as I recall the queens are brought on by the feeding of 'royal jelly'
by the workers which brings them to sexual maturity instead of just being
workers.
For a fully functioning colony in the long term there would have to be
drones also, as the new queen would presumably need fertilising before she
was able to lay any eggs.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_bee
"When conditions are favorable for swarming, the queen will start laying
eggs in queen cups. A virgin queen will develop from a fertilized egg. The
young queen larva develops differently because it is more heavily fed royal
jelly, a protein-rich secretion from glands on the heads of young workers.
If not for being heavily fed royal jelly, the queen larva would have
developed into a regular worker bee. All honey bee larvae are fed some royal
jelly for the first few days after hatching but only queen larvae are fed on
it exclusively. As a result of the difference in diet, the queen will
develop into a sexually mature female, unlike the worker bees."

This also says

"Virgin queens appear to have little queen pheromone and often do not appear
to be recognized as queens by the workers. A virgin queen in her first few
hours after emergence can be placed into the entrance of any queenless hive
or nuc and acceptance is usually very good, whereas a mated queen is usually
recognized as a stranger and runs a high risk of being killed by the older
workers."

So it may be that if you have some queen larvae developing then you can move
them to another hive with some workers and they will develop and be
accepted, but this still leaves the problem of fertilisation.

ah...

"If a queen suddenly dies the workers will flood several cells, where a
larva has just emerged, with royal jelly. The young larva floats on the
royal jelly. The worker bees then build a larger queen cell from the normal
sized worker cell and it protrudes vertically from the face of the brood
comb. Emergency queens are usually smaller and less prolific, and therefore
not preferred by beekeepers."

but still nothing about producing drones.

ah...

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_%28bee%29

"The drones' main function is to be ready to fertilize a receptive queen.
Drones in a hive do not usually mate with a virgin queen of the same hive
because they drift from hive to hive. Mating generally takes place in or
near drone congregation areas. It is poorly understood how these areas are
selected, but they do exist. "

Well, well, learn something every day.

So presumably the aim is to either introduce a virgin queen to the hive if
you have one available, grow your own virgin queen if the hive is producing
one, or rely on the hive producing an emergency queen.

In all of these cases the hive relies on drones from other hives to
fertilise the virgin queen.
She just nips round behind the bike sheds where all the drones hang out.
Simples.

Does raise problems if you have a single isolated hive, though.

Cheers

Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.
[Not even bunny]

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

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