Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => REQUEENING & RAISING NEW QUEENS => Topic started by: acbs on May 31, 2007, 09:58:28 pm
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Sunday evening I checked on a hive body I had put a few frames of bees with some brood and queen cells in. When I lifted the cover I heard a queen piping. Then I heard what sounded like an answer, but the answer sounded as if it wasn't as high of frequency or not quite as clear as the original call. I located and watched the piping queen for a little bit (I didn't have my camera) then removed her, marked her, put her in a cage, and installed her in another box with a few more frames. There were still a few more unopened cells, but never did see the other queen.
Went back last night (Wednesday) to check again. When I lifted the cover I heard a queen piping again and another answer, exactly the same as Sunday. Spotted the piper, got a good shot of her piping a couple of times with my video camera,(might post a link when I figure out how to) all the while hearing that odd sounding answer. When I stopped filming, I was finally able to focus in on the source of the answer. It was coming from one of the unopened queen cells!! Took that piper out and checked again tonight, but no more cells had opened up yet. Will continue to check. I did not know queens piped from inside their cells!
My wife had asked me a couple of questions that I couldn't answer that this situation brings up again.
1) How do queens know when they hatch whether they are a swarm or supercedure queen?
2)How do they know when to kill in the cell or let them hatch and fight?
3) How do they know when to let them live so they can swarm?
Who makes the decisions here?
I posted this same thread on another forum to see what kind of answers I get there.
Arvin
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If I'm wrong MB or some one else can correct me.
The Workers decide whether to swarm or not. if they make the decision then the Queen somehow knows and she will be about midway of the swarm when it makes its exit.
If your bees are not in a swarming mode, the first Queen is calling the other cells so she can go kill them before they hatch,"IF' the workers have chose her. If not they will hold her till another hatches, if the bees believe the two to be equal. They fight till one is killed.
The winner takes "ALL"
doak
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1) i would say like just like you know you love your wife. i mean..in a way.
actualy, when they want to swarm,the queen wants to swarm, and she lays eggs into the queen cells, and she leaves (usually) before her daughter emerges. but when there's a supercedure going on..i would say bees "tell" the queen they're not happy with her, and that she has to leave the new queen emerge. i mean..it has all to do with pheromones.
2) i think that they will kill in cell if possible, but if the emerge right after her..they have to fight, and while they're fighting another one emerges...that's what i'd say
3) i answere this in the first question, the queen wants to leave, and wants her primary hive to survive.
but all of this things can go bad, and i think that no one knows why. sometimes a supercedure can end up in a swarm, or a swarm ends up in (i think) up to 7 swarms, of course they higher the number the smaller the swarm, i have heard of...4 swarms, so..i'm not sure about 7.
a hive is run by bees, not by queenbee and not by workerbees, but by BEES, ALL of them, a hive is 1, super-organism is the right term.
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thanks.
doak
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Arvin. I witnessed the piping of the queen last summer. It was the coolest thing that I had ever heard. I was working the bees with a pal and we heard it. It actually sounded like one of our banty chickens squawking. I have downloaded a wav.file from the internet on queen piping. And yes, they make their piping in different notes, each queen having a different call/response. Cool. It would be really neat to have your video to watch and listen to on the forum. Have a wonderful day, great life. Cindi