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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)
-
[ocba] two swarms question,
David DiGiuseppe, 04/08/2012
- Re: [ocba] two swarms question, Jeff Bollinger, 04/09/2012
-
Re: [ocba] two swarms question,
Lewis Cauble, 04/09/2012
- Re: [ocba] two swarms question, Catherine Adamson, 04/09/2012
- Re: [ocba] two swarms question, Randall Austin, 04/09/2012
- Re: [ocba] two swarms question, Todd Walker, 04/09/2012
- <Possible follow-up(s)>
-
Re: [ocba] two swarms question,
Blair Christian, 04/10/2012
-
Re: [ocba] two swarms question,
Dave Gould, 04/10/2012
- Re: [ocba] two swarms question, Todd Walker, 04/10/2012
-
Re: [ocba] two swarms question,
Dave Gould, 04/10/2012
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