# Fertilizing eggs in drone cells



## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

I remember reading a post that mentioned that unfertilized eggs (in drone cells) can be fertilized by mixing drone semen with a little bit of honey and putting a small amount of the mix in with an egg in a drone cell.

Then those now resulting female larvae can then be used to be raised as queens with known genetics. (But she still needs to mate.)


Has anyone tried this? What were the results?

Do the bees allow fertilized eggs in drone cells to fully develop?


Thanks


----------



## TooFarGone (Aug 19, 2012)

I can't immediately put my finger on the reference, but I recollect that the eggs needed to be placed in a queen cell to get the bees to make a queen. I was fascinated by this concept (daughter queens that are clones of the queen mother). I have not done this myself (yet).


----------



## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

I believe this is the thread referenced:

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...Without-Artificial-Insemination-Can-This-Work


----------



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

If this technique works, how would you figure it would produce clones of the queen that laid the egg?

Since the egg in question is fertilized by a drone/father who may or may not even be related to the queen that laid the egg. Your clone hypothesis would only be true if the unfertilized/haploid egg, laid by the queen, were actually an unfertilized/diploid egg, somehow sharing a precise match of the mother queens own DNA - not being remixed, at all, by sexual cell division, mitosis.

If you fertilized a queen's egg with sperm from one of her own drones (only those receiving the divergent sex allele), would develop. And, that would ensure that the queens produced thereby, would all be carrying only a limited pair of sex alleles. Then, if they mated with drones carrying the same sex allele that they carry, all the "fertilized" eggs with the same sex alleles, would not grow into healthy, adult, worker bees.


----------



## jrbbees (Apr 4, 2010)

I sure hope the bees can keep this straight.


----------



## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

I was talking about the drone father coming from another hive with different genetics.

Yes Joseph, I understand it wouldn't get a clone of the queen by using her own drones.

Thanks


----------



## khicks12 (Feb 28, 2012)

> jrbbees said:
> 
> 
> > I sure hope the bees can keep this straight.


 
Just thinking (*dangerous*) - In the event of a zombie apocalypse where I have no queen but can't get one from anywhere, I could theoretically generate one, even from laying worker eggs, correct? I may have to try this next spring. This past spring when I set up my nucs, a couple of them didn't trhive and ended up with laying workers I may have to try this just for fun. It may not be a great queen, but in an apocalypse scenario, any queen is better than none. You could then work on developing a good queen. I'm not seriously concerned about an anpocalypse, but it's fun to think through how some things would play out.


----------



## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

khicks12 said:


> Just thinking (*dangerous*) - In the event of a zombie apocalypse where I have no queen but can't get one from anywhere, I could theoretically generate one, even from laying worker eggs, correct? I may have to try this next spring. This past spring when I set up my nucs, a couple of them didn't trhive and ended up with laying workers I may have to try this just for fun. It may not be a great queen, but in an apocalypse scenario, any queen is better than none. You could then work on developing a good queen. I'm not seriously concerned about an anpocalypse, but it's fun to think through how some things would play out.


Nope, this won't work. Laying workers' eggs are not fertilized: they therefore only lay drones.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

> Laying workers' eggs are not fertilized: they therefore only lay drones

Perhaps you should read the original post again. The premise is that the eggs would be fertilized by applying drone semen _manually_, that is, by _human_. 

The whole process indeed may not work, but the whole point of the discussion is to intentionally start out with unfertilized eggs, and ending up with fertile queens.


----------



## TooFarGone (Aug 19, 2012)

Joseph C

I used the word "clone" a little loosely since the produced queen's DNA would be subject allele rearrangement so it would not technically be a clone. My assumption is that you would use drone sperm from a drone from the mother queen. If the daughter queen mated with drones from the original queen mother than there would clearly be problems with the same sex alleles with the daughter worker bees. Your point about the drone eggs with drone sperm from the same queen only producing a queen if the drones had divergent sex alleles (add by inference the drones that had the same sex alleles would not develop into viable queens) is well taken. The daughter only having two sex alleles would predispose her to having a shotty brood pattern. I am not a bee genetics expert and have no hands on experience with raising queens (just an armchair book learned mall-ninja-bee warrior lol).


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>Do the bees allow fertilized eggs in drone cells to fully develop?

Not if you leave them in the drone cell and still horizontal. If you fertilize a row of them and cut that comb and wax it vertically in a cell starter you can get them to raise them as queens... it's not as reliable and predictable as you might like...


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

I wonder if the "shell" around the egg is permeable, and if sperm would be able to penetrate the shell after the egg was in the cell.


----------



## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>I wonder if the "shell" around the egg is permeable, and if sperm would be able to penetrate the shell after the egg was in the cell. 

Which is the cause, I think, of the unreliability of the method. The thing that IS reliable is that you got to choose the drone. It's a fun experiment, but in my opinion it's too much work for too unpredictable of a result. The honey seems to be necessary and I've assumed it was to activate the sperm, but it may also be to soften the "shell".


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Why would one do this w/ already fertilized eggs available? I must have missed something.


----------



## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

To have a queen with known parentage. For VSH genetics for example. Low tech Artifical Insemination.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

But she isn't laying fertilized eggs? Or are the drone eggs from a different VSH source?


----------



## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

The beekeepers here in England...I'm visiting...are very up on biology. This for taking their "modules", on the way to taking the national exam. I was told today, that the egg shell is open a bit on one end so the sperm can enter. It's this end that is attached to the cell bottom when the queen lays the egg. Difficult to understand how an egg already in a cell would be fertilized under such circumstances...whether or not you added diluted honey to the cell to, in some way, soften the egg shell to make it permeable.


----------



## TWall (May 19, 2010)

I believe the semen would already have all necessary components to fertilize the egg, it it were possible.

I guess the next question would be are you trapping drones as they hatch and keeping them until they mature, sexually? Otherwise, unless you had a marker like cordovan color how do you know a drone came from the colony it was collected from?

Tom


----------



## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

Michael Palmer said:


> The beekeepers here in England...I'm visiting...are very up on biology. This for taking their "modules", on the way to taking the national exam. I was told today, that the egg shell is open a bit on one end so the sperm can enter. It's this end that is attached to the cell bottom when the queen lays the egg. Difficult to understand how an egg already in a cell would be fertilized under such circumstances...whether or not you added diluted honey to the cell to, in some way, soften the egg shell to make it permeable.


That's interesting. I'll have to try experimenting with that.



TWall said:


> I believe the semen would already have all necessary components to fertilize the egg, it it were possible.
> 
> I guess the next question would be are you trapping drones as they hatch and keeping them until they mature, sexually? Otherwise, unless you had a marker like cordovan color how do you know a drone came from the colony it was collected from?
> 
> Tom


Identifying drones is only useful if you want to instrumentally inseminate queens. In those cases, yea, you can raise drone brood with an excluder and come harvest them when they are mature, from what I read.


----------



## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

This would actually remove a step in producing queens, compared to Instrumentally Inseminating queens to raise daughter queens. The egg is already laid.

With drones, I suppose you could bring in selected drones from another isolated site or you could use colour as a way to identify the mother of the drone. For example, one Cordovan hive in a site with only Carniolans in the other hives.

Either way, it still takes a few batches of brood from the daughter queen before you can see if the desired traits have been passed on.


----------



## kyell (Feb 3, 2012)

Michael Palmer said:


> The beekeepers here in England...I'm visiting...are very up on biology. This for taking their "modules", on the way to taking the national exam. I was told today, that the egg shell is open a bit on one end so the sperm can enter. It's this end that is attached to the cell bottom when the queen lays the egg. Difficult to understand how an egg already in a cell would be fertilized under such circumstances...whether or not you added diluted honey to the cell to, in some way, soften the egg shell to make it permeable.




So you are saying that the open bit is effectively sealed off by the process of being attached to the bottom of the cell? 

Maybe the diluted honey does not actually soften the "shell", but maybe it is helpful in "re-exposing" a tiny part of the open bit of the egg and allowing some access to fertilize the egg? If the honey is able to dissolve some of the adhesive material the queen uses to attach the egg--even by just a tiny bit--it seems conceivable that this process might work if you had freshly laid eggs to work with? Of course, what I have just written is speculation on what might be happening in cases where this process ends up working.

I think that this is worth investigating and could be an inexpensive way to do some line breeding.

To be honest--if it were someone other than Michael Bush who posted that this process can work, I think I would be just as skeptical as the harshest criticism posted on this thread.

I do think that the process would be difficult (maybe not as difficult as II, but still difficult). Now what would really be a feat would be to raise a few queens with this method described in this thread and then use II to further control the drones used. In this case, if you were able to make sure you had only genetic material from one queen (i.e. if all drones and drone eggs used are from the same queen), do you suppose that any resulting viable worker offspring would make a few tiny banjos and start playing "Dueling Banjos" out on the landing board? Or does it take one more round before they pull out the banjos? :lpf:


----------



## Radar (Sep 4, 2006)

There was a post on here ,possible 6 or 7 years ago I believe it was from a beekeeper in Wyoming who described this process, apparently it was first done by a German beekeeper many years previously, I did find the original documentation on the web, but I have no idea where.


----------



## Adrian Quiney WI (Sep 14, 2007)

We just need some of our brethren from Hawaii, or NZ, or Australia to have a go at it and take a few pics.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

kyell said:


> To be honest--if it were someone other than Michael Bush who posted that this process can work, I think I would be just as skeptical as the harshest criticism posted on this thread.


Lots of things work, but how practical is it? How often is it successful compared to other ways of doing the same thing? Maybe the cell is flooded deeply enough to cover the bottom of the egg making the portal available for sperm to enter the egg. I sure don't know.

How are eggs fertilized when a queen lays a fertilized egg? Is there really only one opening in the surface of the egg by which sperm can enter? Where would one find such information?


----------



## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

When I first read this thread, I thought you were trying to reinvent the wheel. But when I realized what you were getting to, Poor mans way to II, I was somewhat intrigued. It might just work on a limited scale. You could raise a small few queens and use those for your graft donors for larger scale production once they had been evaluated. For those that do cut comb, your cell is already larger too. Bonus for you.

Too bad Glenn Apiaries is no longer selling VSH II Queens. Your drone mothers VSH traits will have to be raised or purchased elsewhere. I would assume after the egg is laid you have a _very_ small window of opportunity to introduce the semen. I would almost have to see it to believe it tho...

Take a look at this photo. 










This was a frame out of my Glenn Pure VSH II hive as a walk away nuc. It had several queen cells in it, including this one which interestingly appeared to be on drone cells. I assume it never hatched. But if this drone cell had been manually fertilized by the method described above, it would have a whole new meaning, wouldn't it? 
As Mr. Spock would say: Fascinating


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

He might also say, "Illogical".

Anatomically it appears that an egg passes by the spermathecal gland where a sperm is either added to an egg or not. How in the world an unfertilized egg would get successfully impregnated w/ a sperm after being laid in a honeycomb cell is beyond my imagination. One would have to incubate the comb away from any bees because, would worker bees be inclined to remove the contents of cells which naturally were not supposed to be there?

Is this Thread all speculation? Or is there real evidence and data showing that this has been done? Successfully done?


----------



## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

sqkcrk said:


> He might also say, "Illogical".
> 
> Mark, you always make me laugh
> 
> ...


----------



## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Mark, see post #11


----------



## merince (Jul 19, 2011)

I tried to find some documentation on this process, but was unsuccessful.

Can someone provide a link or at least a bit more detailed description? Step by step instructions would be helpful, too.


----------



## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I'm thinking fly by the seat of your pants on this one, if no detailed info is available. But it could be fun for those thinking about investing in II equipment to fiddle around with. See if it is something they want to pursue before spending those $$.

I'm with Mark on this one. Seems a bit unlikely-but since I've never tried it and am not a scientist (I just play one on beesourse) My opinion is pure speculation.

I mean, You'd have to expose the egg to semen before any cell division took place. Or does cell division not take place until it hatches? It IS still an egg up to a certain point. But like a chicken egg, once laid it is past the point of fertilization. Bees are not mammals, their extraordinary reproducing methods are unique.
I look forward to someone with some actual knowledge to chime in here.


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> > Laying workers' eggs are not fertilized: they therefore only lay drones
> 
> Perhaps you should read the original post again. The premise is that the eggs would be fertilized by applying drone semen _manually_, that is, by _human_.
> 
> The whole process indeed may not work, but the whole point of the discussion is to intentionally start out with unfertilized eggs, and ending up with fertile queens.


Well, how would it work? How would the sperm get into the egg?

Asking a thought out loud. When a chicken is about to lay an egg, isn't the egg shell permeable enough to allow sperm to penetrate and then soon afterwards it isn't? Has anyone ever butchered a hen and found an egg in her? The shell is somewhat transluscent and maliable.

Not that insects and birds are analogous. 

Is this something special for Halloween? The production of Frankenqueens, perhaps?


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I have asked a cpl people that I thought should know how plausible such a thing as we are discussing might be. Not likely is the consensus so far.

What I haven't found so far is other than the egg passing from the ovaries down the oviduct passing the spermathecal gland and then passing out the tail end of the queen into the cell. But I have found no written description of how the sperm enters the egg. No mention of the permeability of the cell wall and no description of a hole in the end of the egg by which sperm enters the egg.

I have never heard of such a hole in any egg cell in any reproduction system. Has anyone else? 

Where should I be looking for what I am looking?


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Mark, see post #11


Thank you. Read it. Found it lacking.


----------



## Rader Sidetrack (Nov 30, 2011)

Mark, none of the links below are exactly what you are seeking, I suspect. But here is a start:



> *The egg is filled with cytoplasm, a nucleus, and a yolk. The nucleus is near the big end of the egg and plays a major role in the development of a future bee. A newly fertilized honey bee queen will have nearly seven million sperm stored in a special pouc h - the spermatheca. Sperm can be stored there, apparently in somewhat of a suspended animated state, for several years. Adult female worker bees can't do all this hence a major difference between the anatomy and physiology of workers and queens. The adult, fertile queen has a muscular valve and pump which are used to withdraw a small amount of sperm from the spermatheca, pump it down the duct to an opening in the vagina where a vaginal valvefold forces the egg's micropyle (an opening in the larger end of the egg) against the opening of the vaginal sperm duct. The connection made, one or more sperm is passed into the egg. The newly fertilized egg becomes diploid (a full chromosomal content) and develops into a female. Shut down the entire sperm-releasing mechanism and the egg remains sperm-free, resulting in a haploid egg (one half of the chromosomal number). The unfertilized egg becomes a drone.**A queen can seemingly tell a worker cell from a drone cell by measuring the cell diameter with her front leg s and will deposit the appropriate egg. However, mistakes are occasionally made. Nurse bees, ever alert to errors, clean up the mistake by eating the errant egg.*
> 
> http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/eggdevelop_early.html


Note in particular, the reference to the egg's "*micropyle ".*

- and -

http://digitalcollections.sit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1916&context=isp_collection

- and -

http://books.google.com/books?id=F3...e&q=fertilize queen egg micropyle bee&f=false

- and -

http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFile...--Metamorphosis of the Micropylar Chorion.pdf

I do not want to give the impression that I necessarily understand any/all this material.  I simply know how to start with simple searches, then use _keywords _found in the initial results to find more documents. :lookout:


----------



## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

I'll wait on this question for a new thread


----------



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Rader Sidetrack said:


> Note in particular, the reference to the egg's "*micropyle ".*


Thank you. That's a new word for me. Apparently there is a hole in the end of the egg. Good to know.


----------



## TWall (May 19, 2010)

Dominic said:


> Identifying drones is only useful if you want to instrumentally inseminate queens. In those cases, yea, you can raise drone brood with an excluder and come harvest them when they are mature, from what I read.


I thought that was the purpose of II, rich mans or poors mans. Why go to the effort to II with semen that you do not know the source of?

Tom


----------



## TWall (May 19, 2010)

I still have a hard time understanding how this is possible. Cell division is going to start taking place very soon, if not immediately, after the egg is laid. Once cell division starts the game is up, you can't add more dna to the process. You only have one set of chromosomes in the haploid sperm to combine with one set of chromosomes in the haploid egg. 

If this were possible you would have to do it with an egg that was just laid.

Tom


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Had a link passed on to me about this subject by a friend.

1. Preparation of drones/semen:

Let the queen lay unfertilised eggs in drone combs about 40 days (24 days development + ca. 16 days for sexual maturity)before AF. These drones should hatch under controlled conditions to be sure about their origin. If e.g. marked with colour paint on their thorax, they can be allowed to freely fly because only a few are needed (one?).
Here comes the most difficult part:
Fill a sterile syringe (volume about 1 ml) about half with sterile sperm dilution buffer (same as used as a stop solution in AM). Attach a sterile glass capillary (about same as with AM) to the syringe and make the dilution buffer fill the capillary, then draw back to make a small volume of air enter the capillary. This air bubble is used to separate the semen from the dilution buffer (this large portion in the ‘back’ of the syringe). The semen of one selected drone (about 1 ul) is then collected in the glass capillary (same procedure as with AM). Thereafter, draw about eight to ten times the volume of the semen (i.e. 10 ul) of semen dilution buffer into the syringe and mix the semen and this small volume of buffer through repeated draw and push cycles on a sterile glass plate. The prepared, diluted semen can be used several hours if stored at room temperature and in the dark.

2. Preparation of unfertilised eggs:

In the morning, cage the queen on one side of a empty fully drawn drone comb. It takes some time till she begins egg laying. In the afternoon transfer the queen to the other side of the same comb. Now, she will continue egg laying after a few minutes. These eggs can now be used for AF. (My comment: In another article I read that if unfertilised eggs will enter development spontaneously after about 4 hours. So in practice, one could wait about 2-3 hours before taking the drone comb to ensure that enough eggs were laid).
The syringe with the diluted sperm is pushed so that the diluted sperm forms half a droplet at the end of the glass capillary. A egg to be fertilised must now be covered with diluted sperm at it’s upper 25 % (the free end of the egg not being attached to the cell)for a second. That’s it! To prevent the sperm from drying, the droplet is drawn back into the syringe each time after AF. Be sure to mark the respective cells (using e.g. an overhead transparency) on the comb.
The comb with AF-eggs is then transferred to a previously dequeened colony. After 3 days the larvae can be grafted as usual. The raised queens can be used for AM too, of course.

If queens are reared from AF-eggs and mated uncontrolled, you may profit from heterosis effects (in workers) in each generation, but at the same time keep ‘your’ race/breeding line/etc. ‘pure’. But one can think of many more applications. Compared to AM, time schedules are reduced significantly.

Except from the syringe and the glass capillary, you do not need any special equipment. For sterilisation you can use a high pressure cooking pot (about 120 degrees Celsius, 20 min)

+ This if the link works.
http://www.beekeepingforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14767


----------



## MattDavey (Dec 16, 2011)

Thanks Graham and Pete, good info there.

I thought it was the size of the worker cell that caused the egg to be pressed again the sperm duct on its way out. Either way it is fertilized AS the egg is laid. So it makes sense that there is a window of opportunity for the egg to be fertilized after it is laid.

The timing just complicates the process a bit in that you need to place a queen on empty comb, put a frame sized queen excluder on the frame and put the frame in the hive. Then come back 4 hours later to fertilize the eggs. I suppose it gives you time to catch the drone(s) and prepare the syringe.

Another thought I had about this is that you don't need to graft! 

If you use the OTS method of removing the bottom three walls of the drone cell, the bees will treat it as a queen cup. Last season I tried OTS by using tweezers and pulling the bottom walls out of several (worker) cells with eggs or young larvae and the bees made a couple of queen cells.


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Just some details on knowing the drone source. Since this is already an issue for those performing II or AI.

You can put what amounts to a queen excluder / drone exluder at the entrance of the hive that then allows the drones to exit into a cage above the entrance. Only sexually mature drones leave the hive so you have a source of known sexually mature drones in that cage.
It would not be necessary to keep this cage on the entrance for a long period of time due to drones are highly sensitive to being captured confined and stressed and will die as a result in a matter of hours. In stall the trap a day or two before collection of fertile drones and you are assured to have drones that came from that hive only. all others will have died.

Just FYI for those of you thinking of attempting this and needing to track down every grizzly detail. By the way the cage that traps the drones can still allow workers to escape. Make it right and it is a ready made cage to remove and carry the drones away in.


----------



## Lauri (Feb 1, 2012)

In Beekuk's instructions is says to "place the now fertlized eggs into a queenless colony". I don't know about anyone else's experience, but a hive recently made queenless generally will clean out all the eggs present. I assume they eat them as a protein source to aid in preperation to produce lots of royal jelly for upcoming queen production. I'd place the newly fertlized drone eggs in a queenRIGHT colony, until they hatch. THEN graft or do your method of cut comb, etc and place in a queenless starter.


----------



## merince (Jul 19, 2011)

This is fascinating!

Thank you, beekuk, for the instructions!

I may try it next spring and see how it works out.


----------



## Dominic (Jul 12, 2013)

Alternatively, you could take a virgin queen, knock her out with some CO2 to make her start laying, and then later inseminate her with her own drones' semen. Such would be a lengthier process than the one described to fertilize a layed drone egg, and would require II equipment, but I suspect the success rate might be higher.


----------



## Brandy (Dec 3, 2005)

Just something I've found while collecting drones for II, is that there are alllll ages of drones on the excluder returning to the hive, not just mature. MAYBE 1 in 4 are mature. You'll go through a lot of drones picking a mature one. Just my .02 cents..


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Brandy said:


> Just something I've found while collecting drones for II, is that there are alllll ages of drones on the excluder returning to the hive, not just mature. MAYBE 1 in 4 are mature. You'll go through a lot of drones picking a mature one. Just my .02 cents.. Also if you think it's easy to control where the semen will touch the correct part of the egg, good luck with that!!!


 Hi Brandy, generally i only use II to maintain, improve or start new lines, so need to have drones from specific queens... i used to mark the drones to ensure they were the right ones,and of the correct age...time consuming and they turn up in many hives, now i simply move the frames of drone comb above an excluder and use the drones when they are the correct age.

Isolated mating stations are much easier to use, if available of course.


----------



## Brandy (Dec 3, 2005)

Yes beekuk, I was just responding to "Only sexually mature drones leave the hive so you have a source of known sexually mature drones in that cage."by Daniel. Not so in my experience. It's tough finding the correct age etc... and very time consuming!! Good luck with your II.


----------



## AstroBee (Jan 3, 2003)

Brandy said:


> It's tough finding the correct age etc... and very time consuming!!



My fingers are still stained brown from popping drone this summer.....


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

AstroBee said:


> My fingers are still stained brown from popping drone this summer.....


Be careful their. someone could mistake that sort of comment as a reference to using drugs. "Popping Drones duuuuuud".


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Dominic said:


> Alternatively, you could take a virgin queen, knock her out with some CO2 to make her start laying, and then later inseminate her with her own drones' semen. Such would be a lengthier process than the one described to fertilize a layed drone egg, and would require II equipment, but I suspect the success rate might be higher.


Just one point that does not make since. If you had II equipment why the need to induce laying of eggs. just take drones she produces all on her own. Unless you are referring to a method of insuring the drones are hers. I had a dying queen in my hand laying eggs this past summer. not sure just how you would manipulate those eggs to return them to a cell.


----------



## beekuk (Dec 31, 2008)

Daniel Y said:


> Unless you are referring to a method of insuring the drones are hers.


 This is what is being described, it is called selfing.

Varying degrees of inbreeding can also be created to produce different relationships, including "selfing"; the mating of a queen to her own drones. 

http://www.extension.org/pages/28332/instrumental-insemination-of-honey-bee-queens#.UnUF11Nzb_s

Also described here page 380 http://www.usmarc.usda.gov/SP2UserF...Propagation and Instrumental Insemination.pdf


----------



## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Brandy said:


> Yes beekuk, I was just responding to "Only sexually mature drones leave the hive so you have a source of known sexually mature drones in that cage."by Daniel. Not so in my experience. It's tough finding the correct age etc... and very time consuming!! Good luck with your II.


Well so much for anything being easy. Still sounds like a good way to collect drones.


----------

