Queen Activity and Supersedure#
1 . How many hours a day can/does the queen work? Does she rest?
Queens generally lay/work 24 hours a day. During spring and the busy time of the year, queens alternate 10-15 minutes of rest with about 5-10 minutes of laying behavior During resting, a retinue of 12 or more worker bees attend to the queen.
2 . How many eggs can a queen lay a day? How many eggs can she lay per year?
Queens lay about 1,500 eggs/day, 200,000 eggs per year.
3 . How much sperm is stored in a queen’s spermatheca after mating?
5 – 6 million
4 . What is the difference between “supersedure” and “swarming”?
Supersedure is the process of replacing a queen with another queen. Swarming is colony division and creation of another colony.
5 . Why is destroying queen cells not an effective way to prevent swarming?
Destroying queen cells may not prevent swarming, just delay it. If cells are cut out the bees will immediately make some more and will probably swarm earlier than normal in their development.
6 . What does a queen cell look like that has been destroyed by worker bees?
It has been opened from the side.
7 . What does a queen cell look like that a queen properly emerged from?
There is an opening at the bottom sometimes with a tiny flap still attached
8 . What causes a colony to supersede their queen?
When bees perceive the queen is failing. These cells are on the face of the comb and not on the bottom like swarm cells.
9 . What is “balling”?
“Balling” is the way worker bees kill an old or foreign queen. A large number or worker bees crowd around the queen forming a ball around her.
10 . What is “piping”?
High pitched sounds produced by queen muscle contractions. The adult queen “pipes” for a 2 second pulse followed by a series of ¼ second toots. If there are virgin queens within a cell, they respond with a series of 10 short pulses.
11 . What is the “mating sign”?
“Mating sign” is the drone reproductive organ attached to the queen’s posterior abdomen.
12 . How are drones attracted to a virgin queen?
Drones are attracted to the queen substance (queen pheromone) up to 200 feet away in mid air.
13 . What is a DCA and what are its characteristics?
A drone congregation area looks like an inverted cone. Not all drones from a colony go to the same DCA. Queens fly to distant DCAs (2-3 miles from the colony) to help minimize mating of brother and sister from the same colony.
14 . What is a drone “flyway”?
Drones fly to and from drone congregation areas (DCA’s) along an established route and take that route every time they go to the DCA. They eat honey in the colony before flying and then return when the honey store is exhausted about 10 to 40 minutes.