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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Blair Christian <blair.christian AT gmail.com>
  • To: david AT daviddg.com, ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [ocba] two swarms question
  • Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:57:39 -0400

Hi David,

I have helped out a friend with her hive this year- there have been a
total of 4 swarms from it, with the end result being about 2 lbs of
bees in each swarm (But there probably weren't more than 8 lbs of bees
in the original hive. Swarm 1 was caught and weighed 6+ lbs; swarm 3
was caught and weighed 4.4 lbs; swarms 2 and 4 got away).

This all got me thinking about the biology. I did some googling, and
it seems not uncommon for afterswarms to have multiple virgin queens-
as a way to hedge their bets against losing a queen on a mating flight
or for another afterswarm?

My hypothesis is that there's a gene related to swarming behavior and
multiple queens/swarm.

Both swarms were put into deeps with 1 frame of open or mixed brood.

Swarm dates:
3/15 (swarm 1, 6+ lbs, did not see queen)
3/17 +2 days (swarm 2 from swarm 1, gone)
3/28 +21 days (swarm 3 from swarm 1, 4.4 lbs - had mated queen)
4/8 +11 days (swarm 4 from swarm 3, gone)




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