#27095
Post
by Undried Plum » Wed Mar 03, 2021 12:36 am
Here's what I'll do to improve the breeding stock of the rather poor Colony#4 and improve it with the breeding stock of the brilliant breeding stock of Colony#2.
First, I will persuade #2 to start the Swarm behaviour. I'll do that by reducing the physical size of the hive. I'll withdraw brood boxes and 'supers' (the boxes which are for stores of honey and pollen). Then I'll reduce the remaining frames, so that they feel that they are overcrowded.
That will trigger the natural reflex of the colony to reproduce itself by swarming.
A Swarm is a process which involves several things. First, they build queen cups. These are acorn sized and shaped cells, quite unlike the normal hexagonal shaped cells that you are familiar with. The queen will lay a single fertilised eggs in each of those cells. There are usually about three or four of such cells, though that number can vary randomly.
Then the colony starts to swarm. Approximately half will go; the rest remain behind. Quite how they decide who goes and who remains is a bit of a mystery. The queen goes with the leavers.
A few days later, one of the queen cups produces a newly emerged queen. She immediately goes to seek out the other queen cups. She kills her unborn sisters. She has a barbless stinger so the she can do so.
She is then the new queen, albeit unable to produce eggs to further the colony. After a couple of first solo flights which involve nothing more than circuits and bumps, she then goes on her mating flight.
Drones are male bees. Their sole purpose in life is to mate, on the wing, with a virgin queen from a different colony. They hang around in groups, at about 100' to 200'agl and several of them will mate with such a virgin queen. She only makes one such flight in her life. She collects enough sperm to last her for the four or five years of he rest of her life.
She then returns to her hive and remains their queen for life.
To split a colony, one forces the swarm behaviour, and then takes the existing queen and introduces her to a queenless colony.
In my case, I will force Colony #2 (the good one) to swarm; then I will kill queen #4 and introduce queen #2 to Colony #4 and will thus improve the breeding stock of #4 while #2 reproduces itself genetically in hive#2 from the good genes of what is currently queen#2.
