Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Swarming
The fast and effective passage of these pheromones around the colony is essential to
colony stability. If the queen is ageing or has other problems and the strength of her
pheromones diminishes, or if the colony becomes so crowded that the message takes
longer to get around, then the workers may sense this and start to build new queen cells
in preparation for queen renewal. Unless the beekeeper acts decisively, this may lead to
swarming, where the old queen and up to half the workers and a few drones depart the
colony and start another one elsewhere while the workers in the original colony raise a
new queen. Thus where there was one colony there will now be two, with the new young
queen getting the best of the deal by retaining the existing nest, stores and brood.
This is in effect colony reproduction and is an entirely natural state of affairs, but it does
mean that half the beekeeper's honey-producing livestock flies off and, in all likelihood,
becomes someone else's honey-producing livestock. (Most beekeepers collect swarms
that are, in effect, free additions to their livestock numbers.) We deal with swarms and
swarm control in more detail in Chapter 6.
Attributes and role
The queen can sting, but her sting lacks an effective barb and its base is well anchored
so that she can usually withdraw it safely. She uses her sting only to kill rival queens and
would rarely, if ever, sting a human.
The queen bee can live for around four years (10 times longer than a worker) unless
replaced earlier by the bees or the beekeeper (queen replacement is discussed in
Chapter 6). She will not fly out of the hive again unless she leads a swarm in search of a
new home, or unless you drop her, when she may fly off never to be seen again.
Considering that she comes from the same genome as a worker bee, her long life is
surprising, especially as most organisms trade long life for not reproducing. Yet the
queen has it both ways. She can lay up to around 2,000 eggs a day and still live for a
long time.
Research shows that a substance called vitellogenin - a yoke protein important to
reproduction - is in higher concentrations in queens than in workers, especially as
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