Many eggs per cell

[Jeffrey Todd]

In September-October of this year I made several nucs and raised several queen in them. All of the queens except one look great, large, nicely-colored, and with good patterns. In one nuc, however, things are a bit strange. This particular nuc was created and given a ripe queen cell on the same day. About 14 days later, when looking for eggs, I noted several drone cells had 15-20 eggs each in them, all at the bottom of the cells. I checked back about a week later, and I see those same cells look just as before and there are a few capped drone cells as well, and there are also some worker cells with single eggs in the bottom of them, and some hatched larvae.
My guess is that I may have a poorly-mated queen. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Jeffrey

[Putz]

I've seen freshly mated queens lay funny for the first round, like she's trying to get the hang of it all. After the first round gets to hatching, she'll straighten up and do great.

I've seen other queens that were poorly mated lay funny then get superceded.

And, sometimes a fresh mated queen will lay drones right away, as she also lays workers. It's kinda like she knows she's good and wants to spread her genes around right away.She'll lay a quick round of drones then stop and lay great worker brood.

I can only figure it's genetics, environment, and good vs. poor mating flight.

[Michael Bush]

Two or three eggs to a cell is a queen trying to get the hang of it. 15-20 eggs per cell is laying workers. Have you seen a queen? Is she small? She may be unmated and with no open brood at a time that their instincts say there should be one they developed laying workers. It is NOT the queen pheromones that prevent this, but the worker brood pheromones that do:

"the queen's pheromones are neither necessary nor sufficient for inhibiting worker's ovaries. Instead, they strongly inhibit the workers from rearing additional queens. It is now clear that the pheromones that provide the proximate stimulus for workers to refrain from laying eggs come mainly from the brood, not from the queen (reviewed in Seeling 1985; see also Willis, Winston, and Slessor 1990)." --See page 11 of Wisdom of the hive by Thomas Seeley.

http://www.bushfarms.com/beeslayingworkers.htm#pheromones

[Jeffrey Todd]

Hmmm. The nuc was made with almost all SEALED brood, so perhaps there was a shortage of pheromone from open brood. The reason I had thought it may not be laying workers was, 1) the fact that all eggs are on the bottoms, not sides, of the cells, 2) the short time span from which these bees were made queenless until the appearance of the multiple-eggs-per-cell, (2 weeks), and 3) that only drone cells had 15-20 eggs per cell, whereas the worker cells have from 1-3 eggs each.
I have not, in fact, seen a queen, but I did not look that hard and the feral queens in this area seem to be especially good at running and hiding (as opposed to mail-order queens).
I will check again in several days and report back.

Thanks for the good insights,

Jeffrey

[Putz]

Thanks Michael for dropping that book title... Wisdom of the hive by Thomas Seeley.

I just ordered it thru Amazon.com, along with these other 2 titles...

The Biology of the Honeybee by Mark L. Winston
The Buzz about Bees: Biology of a SuperOrganism by Jurgen Tautz

I'm looking forward to reading these 3!

[Michael Bush]

>The Biology of the Honeybee by Mark L. Winston

Another great book.

[Jeffrey Todd]

Today I checked back and again see some drone cells with 15-20 eggs per cell but I also see a number of worker cells with 1 egg, or occasionally, 2 eggs. Some of these cells are pretty deep, and all eggs are at the very bottom. There is capped brood in both worker and drone cells, but all are drones. Could it be that there are both laying workers AND a drone-laying queen? Seems as though the criteria for each could be met in this case and perhaps they are not mutually exclusive.
The bees have that restless, desperate feel about them that they seem to get when they are in serious trouble. At this time of year, I am just going to shake the bees off the comb and donate the comb to other colonies or store it.
Thanks again,

Jeffrey

[Putz]

Jeffrey writes... Could it be that there are both laying workers AND a drone-laying queen? Seems as though the criteria for each could be met in this case and perhaps they are not mutually exclusive

Sounds right to me, and your solution sounds like a good one to me also.

[Michael Bush]

>Could it be that there are both laying workers AND a drone-laying queen?

Yes.

>Seems as though the criteria for each could be met in this case and perhaps they are not mutually exclusive.

Yes.

[Jeffrey Todd]

Interesting. Bees always have more to them than meets the eye.