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101312 usurpation attempt

28K views 102 replies 27 participants last post by  squarepeg 
#1 ·
photos to come
 
#32 ·
mark, yes after i screened off the entrance saturday, and after things settled down a bit, i popped the top.

there were relatively few bees in the top super, definitely not any robbers there.

i lifted the top super off and estimated it was half to 3/4 full by weight. things looked calm on the top bars of the deep, which appeared to be full of bees, and no fighting going on there. i then closed it back up.

ironically, this is the only hive out of 18 that i haven't done a full fall inspection on. i wanted to wait until after i moved it, as to not break the propilis before moving. now, i'll wait a week or so, and make sure i still have a queen.

keth, this hive has never had a feeder of any kind on it.
 
#35 ·
ironically, this is the only hive out of 18 that i haven't done a full fall inspection on. i wanted to wait until after i moved it, as to not break the propilis before moving. now, i'll wait a week or so, and make sure i still have a queen.
Don't wait. I think you may have some internal problems which can only be determined by an actual look at the brood frames. I certainly wouldn't wait a week.
 
#33 ·
While not commenting on this specific incident, I have seen mention of amm taking part in 'usurpation' of other hives in the book 'Reflections on Beekeeping' isbn: 0904846826 by Willie Robson, a long standing commercial guy from the north of England. His reference is to the local/amm bees which his family has been keeping for several decades. I don't have a copy to hand so can't be more specific with regards to his actual comments. Just thought that it was worth a mention in the context of this thread.
 
#36 ·
i share your concern mark. i have been seeing regular orientation flights out of this hive in the weeks preceding the usurpation. also, it has been putting on weight as good or better than the other first year colonies. i will wait a week, so i can look for fresh eggs, and know that the queen wasn't killed saturday.
 
#38 ·
mark, many thanks, i really do appreciate your input.

update:

just went out to take a look and,

it appears that things are back to normal in terms of no new fighting or no new dead bees.

i am relieved to some degree, i was worried this might deteriorate into a robbing event (by the stronger hives in my yard).

my plan is to do a full inspection friday or saturday, to make sure that 1)they still have a queen, and 2)that they are ready for winter. hopefully there won't be any bad surprises.

oh yeah, on the testing, after an email exhange with beltsville, i was referred to tucson. i have now emailed tucson with pictures and a link to this thread.
 
#41 ·
update:

well it appears that what is left of the usurping(?) swarm is doing its best at trying to assimilate into my other hives.

unfortunately for them, my hives aren't accepting any new members at this time. :)

i have left voice messages and sent an email to tucson, but they haven't answered back.
 
#43 ·
very cool rolande. no, i don't have the technology nor the time to do that.

after discussing this with a very knowledgable beekeeper, i have about decided that the most likely genetic make up of these bees is very mixed.

it is doubtful that they are pure amm or ahb.

i think it's also likely that this was a late season supercedure swarm, that maybe realized its only chance of survival was to take over another hive.

if tucson calls and is interested, i'll send them. otherwise i'll chalk it up to an interesting day in the beeyard.

i'll let ya'll know how the inspection goes this weekend, and thanks again for all the help.
 
#46 ·
ya'll aint gonna believe this. remember the neighbor i mentioned that i wanted to ask about his experience years ago with those german black bees?

well, guess what? i just talked to him and he had exactly the same thing happen about 1 week prior to mine.

yes, he had a (presumed) usurpation attempt on one of his hives too. in his case the small (presumed supercedure) swarm was right on the side of one of his hives! he caught the swarm and hived it, and is going to overwinter it as a nuc.

now here's the really interesting part, that queen was as yellow as she could be. hmmmm.....
 
#47 ·
Interesting thread...For the last 2 weeks I noticed what initially seemed like robbing activity, was actually some small size swarms trying to take over some of my hives.

Bees would fly chaotically around the hive cover, then cluster between the hive body and the hive cover. The size of a grapefruit or smaller. I noticed this type of activity for a while now, but one day I shook the cluster on the ground and I noticed a blue marked ( 2010 ?), big beautiful queen. I did not have any blue marked queens...so it must have come from someone else. Some of these small size swarms would appear to challenge the entrance in my hives...almost like trying to take over. I heard about AHB usurping activities, but I wondered if non AHB try this "mischief"?

Reading this thread, it appears that they certainly do. As a "strategy"... to try to make it through the winter...makes sense. Why hang on a tree branch, waste energy on trying to find a new "home" and start from scratch....when all the nectar flow is over and chances to make it through the winter are very small. Take your best fighters, and if you are able to take over a well stocked for winter colony...you've got it made. Might get killed in the process, but there is a chance...

Upon checking my hives, there was no sign of swarming in them. All queens in place, and plus, the bee population, size wise, is in no space constrain to swarm at all. There is no flow to speak of...goldenrod was dismal. Also, I have no hives that are weak ( yet) that would get taken over by beetles and/or moths and decide to abscond. I noticed this type of activity in my 2 bee yards that are at least 25 miles apart.

I caught two of these strange swarms and placed them in a nuc box, just to observe what they will do...The queens do start laying, but because there is not enough bees, if I feed them, they are becoming robbing targets. At this time of the year I did not want to take frames of brood from other hives for fears of weakening them.
 
#48 ·
how 'bout that. there have been a few other of these small swarms that i didn't catch for the same reason, too little too late to make a hive with.

it looks like the strategy of these swarms, like you say, is that a remote chance (taking over a hive) is better than no chance (starting from scratch at the end of the fall flow).

i also didn't want to keep the usurping queen, thinking that's not a trait i want to propogate.
 
#49 ·
I think you should have those bees lab id'd. There has been suspicion for a long time there are some capensis genetics in the US, and there is so called AHB genetics, in their pure form both those bees have golden queens.
 
#55 ·
I did not mean to suggest in my post that capensis is here in the U.S. It is however, my understanding, that technically other strains of mellifera do have the same capabilities. I am aware of the Lusby experiment. Perhaps she has some form of mutant strain. Anything is possible. Quite frankly the abilities of the cape bee is astonishing.
 
#56 ·
When there was a thread on this maybe a year ago, not sure, another beekeeper described how he had tried to help a friend with 700 hives save them. What he described, to me, sounded like a textbook case of cape bee invasion. Eventually the beekeeper lost every last hive and went out of business.

Dee claims her bees are not africanised. But DNA testing has shown they have african genetics. Cape bees are from africa, near where the origional AHB came from. In my opinion, there is probably some cape genetics in the US, but not enough to reconstitute a complete cape bee.

It's also telling that Dee has been running seminars for decades teaching people how to become a commercial beekeeper (700 + hives), using her methods. But in all that time many of her pupils have tried, but not one other person has achieved it. Could it be there is something different about her bees.

Having said all that I must add the disclaimer that I don't even live in the US. But based on material I've read it's a reasonable conclusion there is some cape genetics in the US.
 
#59 ·
Thelotyky is known to happen, and in fact it may more than most of us think. Every hear someone say "I KNOW there were no eggs in there, no queen, but suddenly when I bought a new queen I found queen cells"? Ever think one of those laying workers laid a diploid egg? If so, suddenly the bees will be making a new queen!

It is quite rare in european honey bees, quite common in cape bees (because the queens often get blown out to sea on mating flights). As noted, cape bees will decimate AMM apiaries by usurpation and excessive queen production and swarming. They appear to make decent honey crops in South Africa, but elsewhere are a serious pest.

Peter
 
#60 ·
Thelotyky is known to happen, and in fact it may more than most of us think. Every hear someone say "I KNOW there were no eggs in there, no queen, but suddenly when I bought a new queen I found queen cells"? Ever think one of those laying workers laid a diploid egg?
Yes, I hear that sort of stuff constantly, because I sell queens and constantly get called by people assuring me there is no queen in the hive, when from what they say, I suspect there is. It's all about timing and observation, and people get it wrong all the time.
Sometimes I've gone through it with people to try to explain why they cannot introduce a bought queen at the moment because they might have a virgin, or some other problem. But sometimes they just DEMAND i send them one, if so I do, but if I hear back it is almost invariably a sad story.
As to queen cells in a queenless hive, happens all the time the bees use eggs from laying workers. But the larvae will be male and will not survive until just after being capped. Over my life of beekeeping I've dealt with multi thousands of nucs that are queenless periodically, I've never once seen a confirmed case of thelotyky. Not that it couldn't have happened and I didn't notice, but it would have to be EXTREMELY rare, if it happens in EHB at all.
 
#61 ·
update:

still no word from tucson. if anyone out there knows of another resource i can turn to to get this queen and workers id'd i would be grateful.

a little too cold and very windy today for an inspection, there wasn't much flying, most cleansing flights i think.

but it only took about 3 - 4 days for the ursurping workers to starve or die in battle.

all looks normal again, the hive is heavy, and i'll look for queen evidence at the first opportunity.

regarding this diploid laying by workers, i can't say that i have seen that in three summers i've had to look at these bees.

in fact the bred from feral mutts that i have seem not to develop laying workers for a pretty long time. in the one case of laying worker i've had, the brood was spotty and definitly drone.

the other trait i find intriguing about these cape bees, is multiple 'queens' laying in their own sections of the hive with their own nurse bees. wow.

i do see this happening in my hives, when it is what appears to be a 'seamless supercedure'. i.e. the mother and daughter queens lay simultaneously until one finally either dies or leaves.

i think these small late fall swarms are supercedure swarms, and that they are using the usurping option as a last resort.
 
#63 ·
it's ok if it takes a while mark. nothing is hindging on the results. i've just not got a reply at all from tucson, after leaving a voicemail, and an email. maybe they are too busy, or just not interested in these bees. i plan on calling beltsville back on monday, since they referred me to tucson, and see if they will help me get a response from tucson. i think they are all usda.
 
#64 ·
I had a large swarm try to move into one of my hives last year, after a few hours they went elsewhere.
Dr. Wyatt Mangum wrote an article in the American bee journal on usurpation several months ago. It seems its not that uncommon in European honeybees, he watched it happen several times in I think he lives in North Carolina.
Several of my carniolan queens have been as dark as the ones pictured.
 
#66 ·
Funny you mentioned that Dan, my son and I were putting our gear on at the bee yard today and I looked up just in time to see a swarm come into the yard from across the field. We quickly got positioned and the swarm was all around us! They tried moving in as we seen fighting on the landing boards of almost all the hives. Then it faded to the east side of the yard and landed in a sage bush. I told Wyatt to go and observe it while I put my last feed bags on for the year. He wanted to hive it but I didn't have any equipment there and I told him it probably wouldn't make it anyhow since I had no extra drawn frames.

This was the first time I have ever seen an actual swarm in flight and it was awesome!
 
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