# Chances of queen dying on mating flights



## bolter (Jun 27, 2013)

YMMV, but we are running 50% - one post swarm queen didn't return, one "emergency" queen from a hive split did. Don't know what the national average is.
Common wisdom is that a queen will not mate with drones from her own hive - they're not like the royals of Europe!
There are hopefully bees in your area that you don't know about.

good luck


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

Im running 100% this year on 5 splits but we have alot of feral hives around and diversity in genetics.

Its a possibility she is caught by bird or injured etc, I would be more concerned about mating drones nearby. Unlike the kind folk down south, bees don't do incest.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

I disagree with the first 2 answers. Queens cannot control which drones mate with her. It's whichever drones happen to get to her-luck of the draw. So, she can be and often is mated with her own sons. However, she mates with on average 15 different drones giving her a variety of sperm. When eggs are laid that are fertilized from sperm of her own sons, the worker bees can tell and eliminate those eggs from the cells. That is one of the reasons that a brood pattern is spotty. The workers have eliminated the inbred eggs from the broodnest. http://www.bushfarms.com/beesgeneticdiversity.htm 

Hopefully, there may be feral colonies of bees in trees/buildings/etc from swarms of your hives or past hives that may have drones to mate with your queen.

Maybe you could get a frame of bees and eggs from a mellifera beekeeper in another town and let your other hive raise queens to be mated with by your drones. In your situation, it would be best if the 2 hives were of different stock-the more diverse and the more number of drones around from different genetic sources, the better.

By the way, you write with very Americanized English. I'm impressed.

Good luck. In the US, we seldom have extreme problems of lack of genetic diversity that you have. Please let us know how it works out for you.


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## burns375 (Jul 15, 2013)

heaflaw said:


> I disagree with the first 2 answers. Queens cannot control which drones mate with her.


I should have clarified, when i said bees don't do incest like those kind folk in Lincolnton, I should have said incest mating doesn't produce viable results much like in humans and most organisms named heaflaw. ;-) jk


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Normal mating succses is around 90% in most places. Your in a totally different world with not as many options....... Theory has it they will mate with drones from there own hive, but I don't know how anyone knows for sure.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

burns375 said:


> unlike the kind folk down south, bees don't do incest.


 did they move the masson dixon line?


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## JStinson (Mar 30, 2013)

It's been said, but I bet there are some bees in your area somewhere. If not, I don't know what to tell you. I sure hope it works out.



burns375 said:


> Unlike the kind folk down south, bees don't do incest.


To quote The Office: Do you really want to have just said that?


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

You don't have much choice but to let her mate... and that has risks. Odds are she will fly further and higher than the drones from the same yard, but there is no telling what drones she will mate with and if some of the drones from her hive have drifted back from a DCA to some other hive and then flew out with those drones to the same DCA (Drone Congregation Area) that the queen did. In other words, there are no guarantees but the biology of the bee puts the odds in favor of out crossing and diversity rather than inbreeding.

What can you do? I find that a queen is more likely to fly and more successful if the hive is in a flow. If it's not in a flow, I would reduce the entrance (to prevent robbing) and feed them during the time when she needs to mate. This will increase the odds that she will fly and that she will succeed. Everything works better in a flow, including queen mating.

Never underestimate how many drones there are and how many feral hives there are. She will likely find some drones somewhere.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

burns375 said:


> I should have clarified, when i said bees don't do incest like those kind folk in Lincolnton, I should have said incest mating doesn't produce viable results much like in humans and most organisms named heaflaw. ;-) jk


I'll have you know, that in my ancestry, I only have 3 sets of first cousins that married and had children. I credit that as to why I have 9 toes instead of 7 or 8.


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## beedeetee (Nov 27, 2004)

I'm sure queen success is local, like much of beekeeping. I have 80% average success from queen cell to laying queen. Some don't hatch and some don't come back. This year I was 100% successful on my first larger batch and 50% on my smaller second batch. (The second batch was to replace any failures from the first, which I didn't end up having). I rarely have a hive go queenless though, say after swarming or supercedure. I know that I see a lot of that here on Beesource, but I don't see it in either of my apiaries. In one, I have up to 100 swallows flying over my hives at any one time. It looks like a terrible place for bees, but I've never not had a queen return. Maybe they prefer drones.


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## Paul McCarty (Mar 30, 2011)

My last set of a dozen queens only had two return alive. I figure it was from the birds migrating through at the time.


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## Tenbears (May 15, 2012)

Paul McCarty said:


> My last set of a dozen queens only had two return alive. I figure it was from the birds migrating through at the time.


And how many returned dead as opposed to not returning. LMAO. Sorry Paul Could not help myself?? :applause:


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## marcos bees (Jun 3, 2013)

This is the funniest thread! You guys are crazy. thanks for the comment about my Americanized English. That's probably b/c I am an American living over here.. LOL. :lookout: 

I don't understand all this stuff about the flow b/c I have given them syrup, but they won't take it right now, so I assume the flow is on.

If I was to get a frame of new eggs, how long can those eggs last in shipment without being fed? It would likely take 2 days door to door...


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

heaflaw said:


> So, she can be and often is mated with her own sons.


:scratch:Errr...given that a queen only mates _before_ she starts laying any eggs, this is not possible. Brother, cousin, etc...sure, but not offspring.

deknow


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## Paul McCarty (Mar 30, 2011)

Queens returning dead - I would LOVE to have some undead queens! Think of the market for those! What a novelty.


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## JStinson (Mar 30, 2013)

Paul McCarty said:


> Queens returning dead - I would LOVE to have some undead queens! Think of the market for those! What a novelty.


Zombees.

:lookout:


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

deknow said:


> :scratch:Errr...given that a queen only mates _before_ she starts laying any eggs, this is not possible. Brother, cousin, etc...sure, but not offspring.
> 
> deknow


Duh on me. Of course you're correct.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

deknow said:


> :scratch:Errr...given that a queen only mates _before_ she starts laying any eggs, this is not possible. Brother, cousin, etc...sure, but not offspring.
> 
> deknow


Okay. Maybe the incest thing effects the brain also.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

marcos bees said:


> If I was to get a frame of new eggs, how long can those eggs last in shipment without being fed? It would likely take 2 days door to door...


Since no one else is answering you, I'll try and then maybe someone north of the Mason-Dixon line can help also.

It takes about 3 days for eggs to hatch into larva. For bees to raise a new queen, they need to use larva that has hatched less than 3 days and preferably only one day. So, if your shipment takes a long time to arrive, they cannot use the larva to raise successful queens.

The larva need to be fed as soon as they hatch from eggs, so if eggs are shipped and at least some of them are newly laid, I guess that would work. The eggs/larva absolutely must be kept warm-I think around 85 degrees F. 

It would be far better to have the frame of eggs shipped along with the adhering nurse bees to keep them warm and attend to any larva that hatch. They would need to be shipped in a ventilated container (cage made of screen wire would be perfect) and would need feed of soft candy, fondue, etc. Too much jarring in shipment would not be good. 

Hope I didn't leave something out.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Large scale queen producers would, I am sure, agree that anything over a 90% success rate is pretty rarified air though at least some of the "misses" may well involve cells that never hatched. If you don't have a lot of nearby hives to distract a returning, disoriented queen, though, I would think its reasonable to expect at least 9 of 10 queens to successfully find their way back into the proper hive.


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

heaflaw said:


> So, she can be and often is mated with her own sons.


Please explain exactly how it is that an unmated queen has produced a son to mate with. This is going to be interesting.

I suspect that you mean brother.


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## AR Beekeeper (Sep 25, 2008)

Using instrumental insemination it is possible. A virgin queen can first be gassed with carbon dioxide which will induce her to start to lay, the eggs are drones and when the drones mature the semen is used to inseminate the virgin queen. At least that is how I have read it can be done.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

marcos bees said:


> I have a virgin queen that may be my only chance at a queen that will lay eggs. My other hive has no queen. Unfortunately, here we cannot order queens like in the U.S., so I have to make this queen work or I'm in deep crap and will likely lose both hives.
> 
> What is the chance my queen will die on her mating flights? If she does then I'm up a creek. :digging:
> 
> Also, does she mate with drones from her hive or other hives? I ask b/c there is no one in the local area who has meliferra, so I assume she would have to mate with drones from one of my hives. And there aren't that many drones. Like only a handful.


All the other bees in your area, are they apis dorsata or apis cerana? Or both?


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Daniel Y said:


> Please explain exactly how it is that an unmated queen has produced a son to mate with. This is going to be interesting.
> 
> I suspect that you mean brother.


Yes, I meant genetically related.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

I thought that there was a theory that queens flew farther away from the hive to mate than drones flew to mate. If true, that would keep queens from mating w/ their brothers.

I looked in my Encyclopedia of Beekeeping but couldn't find it stated. Other interesting stuff in there though. Drones don't start searching for the queen scent 9-0-2 until they get to a certain altitude, about 30 feet up. If I recall what i read correctly. How drone congregations are established and why they are established where they are is not fully understood.


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

Marco, isn't Indonesia a tropical country? I come from a tropical country myself and feral bees are abundant in tropical countries, a least where I am from. They even settle in peculiar high places, trees and masonry wall. Just ask the locals about bees in the area. It must be a good flow year around.


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## marcos bees (Jun 3, 2013)

Robert, yes indonesia is very tropical. Where are you from?

There are wild bees here, but they are mostly apis cerana, the local native bee. Apis mellifera were imported back in the day and although they do well here, they are not native, so I am not sure if they can be considered "feral". Generally, what we find in the wild here are cerana.



roberto487 said:


> Marco, isn't Indonesia a tropical country? I come from a tropical country myself and feral bees are abundant in tropical countries, a least where I am from. They even settle in peculiar high places, trees and masonry wall. Just ask the locals about bees in the area. It must be a good flow year around.


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## heaflaw (Feb 26, 2007)

Marcos, let us know what you do and how it works out for you.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

roberto487 said:


> It must be a good flow year around.


This is a false assumption that people often make. There is nowhere that one will find good flows all year around. Ecosystems and flowering plants don't work that way. In temperate climates, such as the Northern parts of the US, we have warm times when flowering plants can produce w/ dry periods when they don't followed by a cold time w/ snow. Tropical areas have rainy seasons.


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

marcos bees said:


> Robert, yes indonesia is very tropical. Where are you from?
> 
> There are wild bees here, but they are mostly apis cerana, the local native bee. Apis mellifera were imported back in the day and although they do well here, they are not native, so I am not sure if they can be considered "feral". Generally, what we find in the wild here are cerana.


Marco, I am from the Dominican Republic, the Apis mellifera were also imported a while back and they have a strong hold on the ecosystem, they are basically everywhere. I have seen hives on colonial ruins in the capital city and in the country side they are abundant on avocado and mango trees.


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## marcos bees (Jun 3, 2013)

Thanks Roberto. What kind of flowers do the bees feed on in the DR?

Right now I see mango trees here starting to bud. Should be a few months til they are in bloom. 



roberto487 said:


> Marco, I am from the Dominican Republic, the Apis mellifera were also imported a while back and they have a strong hold on the ecosystem, they are basically everywhere. I have seen hives on colonial ruins in the capital city and in the country side they are abundant on avocado and mango trees.


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## roberto487 (Sep 22, 2012)

avocado, mangoes, bananas, passion fruit, papaya, guava, squash, citrus, and so on.


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## marcos bees (Jun 3, 2013)

Thanks Heaflaw, this is the info I was looking for. Yeah, I wanted to know how long the eggs or larva could last in transit while not being fed by nurse bees. Here the post office will not allow bees to be shipped.




heaflaw said:


> Since no one else is answering you, I'll try and then maybe someone north of the Mason-Dixon line can help also.
> 
> It takes about 3 days for eggs to hatch into larva. For bees to raise a new queen, they need to use larva that has hatched less than 3 days and preferably only one day. So, if your shipment takes a long time to arrive, they cannot use the larva to raise successful queens.
> 
> ...


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## hagane (Aug 15, 2015)

so lets do a decision tree... to figure this out. IF something happened to the queen on the mating flight would the bees come back to the hive who were with her when she died? And would they trigger some kind of ... pheromone reaction or whatever that would trigger the other bees to know she's gone? Would there be a difference in time too between the other bees remaining behind starting to 'cry' from her just leaving as compared to her leaving and then something happening to her?


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## Phoebee (Jan 29, 2014)

There is one way to avoid the risk of a mating flight, which is to use instrumental insemination. You can find instructions and how-to videos on line. This is a pretty advanced technique, usually only used for $200 breeder queens where the breeder wants to control which drones mate with the queen.

It is grizzly business, involving killing and dismembering the drones. But things end badly for the drones in any case.


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## hagane (Aug 15, 2015)

I think its kind of funny in a way...we think the bees killing their drones and dismembering them is cruel...but we have divorce lawyers do it for us and they make the agony last for years instead of a small moment. Which is really more cruel =D

I've got a lot of ideas on bees vs lawyers jokes.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

hagane said:


> IF something happened to the queen on the mating flight would the bees come back to the hive who were with her when she died?


I think you have assumed that when a virgin queen goes out on her mating flights that she does so accompanied. I am not certain of this, but I don't think she does go out with an entourage. I have never heard of that happening.

For certain drones from the same hive do not go with her. Queens fly farther to DCAs than the drones from her parent colony do.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

hagane said:


> ...we think the bees killing their drones and dismembering them is cruel...


Bees do not kill their drones and dismember them. I think you have some basic bee biology studying to do.


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## biggraham610 (Jun 26, 2013)

5 out of 6 made it this year. G


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