Small cell Queens?

[sampa]

Do bees that have been regressed to 4.9mm produce smaller queens? I was wondering if they made a smaller queen cell, which I assume would make a smaller queen.

[Antero]

Sampa; have a look.

http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/meetlusby.htm

The Lusbys raise their own queens, and follow a fairly typical technique, though their selection criteria are unique to their operation and needs. Basically, they select breeder queens for honey production, no brace comb production, gentleness and 'health.'

Once a breeder is selected, frames of day-old larvae are pulled and grafted into Kelley wax cell cups. "We use Kelleys because they tend to be smaller, about 5/16-inch rather than the larger 3/8-inch," Dee said.

Terry

[Michael Bush]

Queens, under any circumstances, vary greatly in size. IMO from my experience, it's hard to say defnitively that small cell bees make smaller queens since even with large cell bees the queens vary a lot. They still vary a lot with small cell bees. But I think all averaged out they are a bit smaller. Still there is a lot of overlap of size between small cell and large cell bees making queens.

My observation is, the difference between a large queen and a small queen from one given size of bees (large cell or small cell either one) is greater than the difference averaged out between the queens raised by small cell bees compared to the queens raised by large cell bees.

Maybe after a few years for the bees to get settled into small cell I'll see more consistency in the differences, but so far that's what I've observed.

[Hook]

Michael, you and I both started raising queens on small cell about the same time, and personally, I see no real difference in size. However, I have been trying to create my own "mongrel" bee, and have added different races to the mix. Logically, this tells me that my bees just have not adapted yet. I really don't think they ever will, because bees have been around a million or so years, and any size changes probably fluctuate with environmental conditions. I am by no means any expert, but I am a realist.

[naturebee]

Dee reduces the size of her queen cell cups with hot wax and a 5/16 dow inserted to create the proper size cup.

I do agree that queens vary in size and I see no obvious difference in size of a laying queen. My ‘personal opinion’ on this is that the difference in size is most noticeable when the queen is very young before the queen starts layin full bore and the abdomen has a chance to swell.

This is the only time when size really counts, as I believe assortative mating plays a key role in separating the different races of bees and may even aid in the likelihood of separation of the ferals from the domestics. It is possible that differential mechanical and tactile cues can result in assortative mating by drones, thus keeping the majority of domestics from mating with the smaller feral queens.

Assortative mating in drones:

http://balder.prohosting.com/~starrier/SizeRelatedMatingPreferences.html