A couple of nice pics here as well as a brief description of honey bee queen replacement procedures...
Can a bee colony replace its queen?
from Earthsky
Can a bee colony replace its queen?
from Earthsky
|
A queen bee is the only bee in a colony that lays eggs. She is the mother of the entire hive. In that regard, she is like their leader.
When a queen begins to falter and fail, usually by laying too few eggs or perhaps an untimely injury, her daughters begin preparations for replacing her. This process is called supersedure. The bees will raise a new queen from among their sisters and remove and replace the older, failing queen. Perhaps we humans can take a lesson from the honey bee. Perhaps our old, failing governmental leaders need to be replaced. If the bees wait too long before replacing their queen, there will be no viable stock left to raise a new queen from. We cannot afford to procrastinate, or it may be too late. We should begin replacing our failed leaders today. We need to rid ourselves of decades of toxic policy that have left our country sick and weak. The federal government has two roles: protecting U.S. citizens from foreign countries (military) and assisting the states in trade and commerce with each other and foreign countries. Anything else is unconstitutional and illegal. All of the social programs, healthcare, welfare, abortion, marriage, education... they're all unconstitutional powers illegally seized by an oppressive, bloated, greedy federal government. These are state issues, and best left to the states and their citizens. It is time for a change. It's time for the people to take back our government from the greedy, evil, and failing bureaucrats. Risky and sometimes painful measures sometimes need to be taken to save the hive. The alternative is death. Supersedure in honey bees is the replacement of an old queen with a new queen, usually done because the old queen is failing in some regard.
"The colony that decides their queen is not up to the task at hand starts supersedure promptly. After starting supersedure cells the old queen is expendable. The colony is not going to let her interfere in the process. If the old queen insists on removing the competition, and balling her away from the supersedure cell in development does not provide adequate attitude adjustment, they are forced to terminate her. They would prefer to have her continue to lay until her daughter is mated and laying." Are They Supersedure or Swarm Cells? Bee Culture – July, 2005 by Walt Wright "If in the Spring or early Summer or late Summer or Autumn you suddenly find between one and five evenly aged queen cells built on the face of the brood combs of this colony, you may very well have a very rare treasure, i.e. a supersedure strain. Should you subsequently examine your colony and find therein your old queen still laying while on an adjacent frame you find her daughter queen also laying, then you surely have a pearl of great price. For this is supersedure at its very best and this is a strain which is well worthy of future propagation." LONG-LIVED SUPERSEDURE STRAINS, written in 1997 by Micheál Mac Giolla Coda |
AuthorBilly Craig 
Archives
May 2013
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
