[muskrat]

Several local beekeepers have given their opinion but they are in disagreement. Some laugh and say absolutely not while others say sure they do. I'm leaning toward the "not" side.
Will a strong queenless colony steal eggs from another hive so they can raise a new queen?
I'm guessing if they get a new queen it is probably a virgin that they "escort" home after she's bred or a newly mated queen that comes back to the wrong hive.
Thoughts?

 

[JWPalmer]

I am firmly in the NOT category. Much more likely the queen is a returning mated queen that entered a wrong hive. I believe that scenario is a lot more common than many people realize.

 

[Roland]

If you think "True", I have a park to sell you. It even has my name on it. (That's another NOT vote)

Crazy Roland

 

[crofter]

I say no, but I have been reading Steve Taber's book on queen rearing and he has instructions on making egg removing forceps. I dont know if they will continue development if laying down or what stage of development they must be harvested.
However if it were even a remotely occurring act for the bees, I am sure it would have been widely documented.

 

[Vance G]

The school of really really wishful thinking here! No. I just cannot envision this happening and have seen no evidence that it ever happened in my space time continuum.

 

[Amibusiness]

Another no vote here. They do steal eggs from their own hive to eat when the weather turns bad in the spring and they don't have enough pollen to feed the growing brood. It's called cannibalism and not queen rearing. I wonder if there are some folks who see a "queenless" hive because there are no eggs or queen cells and a month later there are eggs ("they must have stollen eggs from a neighbor and raised a new queen") when really there was already a virgin running around. And a vq going home to the wrong box is also a possibility. I have heard of (but not seen!) a swarm going into a neighboring queenless box. I am not sure how that would go down, seems to me they would not get along. But it's interesting enough I keep my eyes open for such an occurance because if it happens I sure would like to see it. (The closest I've come is a swarm that landed in the 3 inch gap between two hives. Though they were easily accessible it was a bit of a pain to rehive them....)

 

[pjigar]

I think I read about this a while back some where and the conclusion was NOT true. Just a luck of draw that queen was lost and returned to a wrong colony.

 

[crofter]

There was a thread here in the past and also thrashed out on Bee_L that some bees (cape bee) can lay fecund eggs and that it can also occur extremely rarely in other bees. This leads to situations where people conclude that the bees must have hauled in fertilized eggs from another source.

Like the story of immaculate conception in humans, I suspect the factual explanation rules the day.

 

[crofter]

Why not? To my mind, it is a rather reasonable decision

Theletoky, moving eggs, or stories about the birds and the bees?

 

[Surviving Our Bees]

Several local beekeepers have given their opinion but they are in disagreement. Some laugh and say absolutely not while others say sure they do. I'm leaning toward the "not" side.
Will a strong queenless colony steal eggs from another hive so they can raise a new queen?
I'm guessing if they get a new queen it is probably a virgin that they "escort" home after she's bred or a newly mated queen that comes back to the wrong hive.
Thoughts?

no. They'll start laying workers instead.

 

[clyderoad]

This is getting better by the minute!

And here I thought this notion was settled a century ago.

 

[joebeewhisperer]

I am firmly in the NOT category. Much more likely the queen is a returning mated queen that entered a wrong hive. I believe that scenario is a lot more common than many people realize.

I've seen queens show up at the wrong hive and get balled to death on the landing board. Makes sense that one would get through now and again.

Why not? To my mind, it is a rather reasonable decision

I was watching a YouTube video a few months ago where the poster said "They have moved these eggs from this frame, across to this other frame". While it's not impossible given the tools they have, the moved eggs would be missing the glue that keeps them upright and attached to the cell. Once the egg has hatched we can move young larvae to make queens (with varying degrees of success). That said, I've never seen evidence that a single egg or larvae has been moved by the bees. Going to another colony and confiscating an egg brings up a myriad of other issues for the robber as well. It is thought-provoking.

 

[crofter]

I will have a look and see if there is more info from Taber on his purpose for gently removing eggs from their attachment point on the cell floor. Some laying worker eggs hatch as we know but are they the ones that get attached to cell wall near the bottom or could the ones air dropped higgledy piggledy also hatch. I think they clean out and eat all but one. I never made much of a study of laying workers!
They have some egg handling abilities; wouldn't it be cool if someone could teach the bees how to graft for us? Lets see........ who is up to doing a study on it.

 

[Surviving Our Bees]

I actually wish that the bees did steal eggs from one another on an as needed basis.

 

[bushpilot]

Theletoky, moving eggs, or stories about the birds and the bees?

None of the above. Undoubtedly a spammer working his/her way into the fold.

 

[crofter]

None of the above. Undoubtedly a spammer working his/her way into the fold.

I thought the three posts from that one were kind of out of context.

 

[crofter]

I looked a bit deeper into Taber's dabbling into queen rearing from eggs and moving them about. By the time he got around to writing it up the details were a bit sketchy; I think he had decided that it was not useful technology anyways at that point. He though possibilities of shipping genetics. Claimed the eggs did not have to be kept warm, only moisture controlled. Emergence after moving was 50 to 75% but queens raised were very hit and miss on quality and some larvae even raised out as worker. Other experiments with presenting both egg and one day larvae in grafts, resulted in very few acceptances of the egg.

The pliers he disigned clamped to a stop with about .009 (nine thousanths) of an inch gap between claws and had to be well rounded on edges. Egg could be grasped, pulled sideways a bit and move off the wax and then stood up again in the new location. Looks like the "glue" the queen uses is not hard setting. He did not mention whether the eggs would emerge if merely laid down on their sides.

From reading that, it makes me think that physically the workers might be able to handle the mechanics of moving eggs, but from the scarcity of authentic reports of it over thousands of years, it is not something that they actually do.

 

[msl]

Think gentnics

If you steal an egg form another hive, your gentnical dead and won't pass the stealing traite on.

Hives that go laying worker create drones to pass the gentnics on can pass the trait on

 

[Roland]

Good points, MSL. The goal in life is to perepetuate your genes. Just ask any Viking.

Crazy Roland

 

[SWM]

No, if this were the case then colonies would never develop laying workers after becoming hopelessly queenless. They would just steal eggs from a nearby colony.
I've never heard this even suggested before.