# Mysterious Discovery



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

While inspecting my colonies the other day, I discovered that one colony has a laying queen and she is missing one of her large wings from one side of her body. I am not certain, yet, that she isn't a drone layer, but after watching her lay a few eggs, I am not sure that this is a birth defect, or an after mating flight injury. I plan to keep a close eye on how her brood develops.


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## Dave W (Aug 3, 2002)

Is she a "clipped" queen?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

No, not clipped. I haven't had any clipped queens for, at least, the past ten years. I am planning to mark and clip a few as I get better at breeding queens.


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## Dan Williamson (Apr 6, 2004)

Its possible that she was balled by other bees at some point. I have a queen who was balled. (I accidentally shook a laying queen into the nuc with q-cage) and she has a wing that sticks straight out at a 90deg angle from her body yet she lays a great pattern.

Just a thought.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

*Photographic Examination*

The next time I open that hive, I plan to bring my digital camera and try to get a close-up of this queen, so I can examine the wing damage. That is, if she's still there by then.


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## odfrank (May 13, 2002)

If it was a birth defect, how would she have gone on a mating flight?


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## Brent Bean (Jun 30, 2005)

Could have been a near miss when your were manipulating frames?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

odfrank said:


> If it was a birth defect, how would she have gone on a mating flight?


That's why I'm gonna keep an eye on her to see if she shows herself to be a drone-layer.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Brent Bean said:


> Could have been a near miss when your were manipulating frames?


Quite possible. I always try to locate the queen when I'm manipulating a colony, so I can take precautions against that kind of thing happening, but I do not always locate the queen when working any particular hive.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

In my experience the queens with bad wings don't fly and if they don't fly they don't mate and if they don't mate they don't lay at all. You just have this hive with a queen with bad wings and no brood whatsoever.

If they fly, but late, or they are poorly mated (not enough drones and not enough sperm) then they lay but lay drones.


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## WG Bee Farm (Jan 29, 2005)

I would not take the chance or waste the time that this queen is satisfactory.
It would be better time spent killing the queen and replacing her than waiting to see if she will produce. By the time she lays the eggs, the eggs become larva, finally are capped, and you see that they are drones the colony has wasted energy feeding and caring for the drone larva when they could be caring for new worker eggs/larva layed by a new queen.
"We" all become emotionally attached to our queens and tend to do the hives we care for damage by keeping a "bad" queen.
Bite the bullet and replace her ASAP. Don't take chances with your hive.


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## simplyhoney (Sep 14, 2004)

Micheal,
I have to question your statement "if they don't fly they don't mate and if they don't mate they don't lay at all. " I have on a few occassions requeened my observation hive with a cell. For some reason, perhaps because the bees have to travel down a long tube, the queen never went on a mating flight. I only know this b/c it is my observation hive. about 2 weeks after we watched her hatch out, we noticed the the colony never really pulled itself together like it does when the queen starts laying. Bees were disorganized putting honey and pollen scattered everywhere. I took a look at the inner frames which should have been the center of the brood chamber and found a virgin, although she was small, she moved slow more like a mated queen. She was laying a pretty concentric circle and in the middle the cells were pertruded out and almost capped with drone brood. Of course I can't be sure that it wasn't a laying worker, but laying workers, in my experience, don't lay patterns like this one. 
Up until this experience I assumed the same thing as you. But now I am not so sure. It was probably one of the exceptions to the rule.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

How do you know she wasn't just delayed and finally DID mate. I know the ones I've seen with damaged wings never layed at all, and I know they couldn't mate. The drone layers were always when the weather was bad for two weeks straight or some other delay in mating.

Huber confined many queens many times and the results were always that she would not rest or lay until he let her mate and then she would start to lay. If the delay was 16 days or less she would be normal if it was past twenty days then she would be a drone layer.

"I had the patience to observe this queen thirty-four days. Every morning about eleven o'clock, when the weather was fine and the sunshine invited the males to leave their hives, I saw her impetuously traverse every corner of her habitation, seeking to escape. Her fruitless efforts threw her into an uncommon agitation, the symptoms of which I shall elsewhere describe, and all the common bees were affected by it. As she never was out all this time, she could not be impregnated. At length, on the thirty-sixth day, I set her at liberty. She soon took advantage of it; and was not long of returning with the most evident marks of fecundation.

"Satisfied with the particular object of this experiment, I was far from any hopes that it would lead to the knowledge of another very remarkable fact; how great was my astonishment, therefore, on finding that this female, which, as usual, began to lay forty-six hours after copulation, laid the eggs of drones, but none of workers, and that she continued ever afterwards to lay those of drones only."

"The entrances of these hives were too confined for the passage of the females and drones, but the common bees enjoyed perfect liberty. The queens were imprisoned thirty days; and being then set at liberty, they departed, and returned impregnated. Visiting the hives in the beginning of July, I found much brood, but wholly consisting of the worms and nymphs of males. There actually was not a single worker's worm or nymph. Both queens laid" --New Observations on the Natural History Of Bees by François Huber

http://www.bushfarms.com/huber.htm#letter3

This was watching the queen for 34 days and she still did not even attempt to lay until she had mated.


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