Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 5.4.
Instrumental insemination of a queen honey bee. h e queen is
positioned head down, ventral side up. h e hook on the right moves the sting out
of the way to make room for the syringe, full of semen, to be placed in the vaginal
orii ce. Semen is injected into the median oviduct. Photo by Jacob Sahertian.
Hellmich and Rothenbuhler were biased toward collecting pollen and
foraged one day earlier in life than the low strain. h e bias in pollen for-
aging was an obvious and expected consequence. Other hypothesized
mechanisms were the following: (H1) high-strain colonies have more
larvae and hence more brood pheromone to stimulate pollen foraging;
(H2) high-strain colonies produce fewer larvae and thereby consume less
pollen; (H3) high-strain individual larvae produce more pollen-foraging
cues; (H4) high-strain queens produce cues that stimulate more pollen
foraging; (H5) high-strain colonies have more foragers; and (H6) high-
strain colonies have a higher proportion of pollen foragers.
h e response to selection was very rapid. At er the i rst generation of
selection, the amounts of stored pollen of the high and low strains were
signii cantly dif erent, demonstrating that a signii cant amount of the
variation observed in the commercial hives with naturally mated
queens was due to genetic variation among colonies. By generation 3,
