bees transfering their info

[sugar bandit #2]

I recently donated a couple frames of sealed brood (& nurse bees)from my strongest colony to my 2 weakest colonies. The strongest (donator) colony has been bringing huge amounts of pollen for (almost a month now) I was wondering when the brood emerges into their new colonies if they will comunicate their improved pollen collecting traits to their new colony?

[BULLSEYE BILL]

>I was wondering when the brood emerges into their new colonies if they will comunicate their improved pollen collecting traits to their new colony?


It isn't necessarily better traits, more than likely it is strength of numbers and available foraging age bees.

Say for example if your Italians ate up most of their stores and dwindled in numbers, they become weakened and not able to build up as fast as the hive with more bees being able to take care of brood in late Feb. and March.

Some breds like Carnolieans will use less stores and maintain good numbers of bees and take off very fast in the spring.

This is why it is important that you know the condition of the hives stores in Feb. and March and add feed to those that are low. It takes a lot of stores to raise brood, and they run out fast especially just before the pollen and nectar is available.

[jfischer]

> when the brood emerges into their new
> colonies if they will comunicate their
> improved pollen collecting traits to their
> new colony?

To directly answer the question asked, no.

The bees in any one colony are very likely
to show similar "traits" inherited from the
queen and the drones that mated with her,
but adding a few frames of brood that
are "superior" in some way will not change
the traits of the offspring of the queen
at all.

Bees are not "taught" to do anything.
Bees come preprogrammed with simple rules
that they use to accomplish what can
appear to be very complex tasks.

While bees can be "taught" or "trained",
teaching one bee does not result in the
"education" of another. Bees are
individuals in this sense.

I agree that the most likely reason for
two nearby hives to have different pollen
collection rates would be simple "hive
strength".

[sugar bandit #2]

>Bees are not "taught" to do anything.
Bees come preprogrammed with simple rules

I was wondering about the "bee dance" as I thought this was a method field bees used to comunicate / teach the others bees in the colony of a specific area of interest (i.e. necter flow) in relation to their existing colony?

Thank you for the info

[This message has been edited by sugar bandit #2 (edited April 01, 2004).]