# Egg laying and Unmated virgins



## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

I've designed a homemade experiment. I've been banking undesirable queens since early June 2011 - most of these banked queens are mated/laying queens, some are virgins, caged as soon as they emerged from their cells. Just now I selected two of the most well-formed unmated virgins and installed them into candy release cages.

My plan is to introduce these older unmated virgin queens into their own nucs and to observe what happens.

?? - Can and will, older, unmated virgin queens lay eggs? If they do, of course, their eggs should remain unfertilized and all produce drones. I've heard that queens lay eggs only after they've mated, but if they mate too late in life, they are unable to lay fertilized eggs. I've also heard that queens that never mate, never lay eggs. What will my old virgins be able to do?


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## valleyman (Nov 24, 2009)

It will be very interesting. I don't have an opinion, but I doubt that 2 will prove anything for sure. I'm sure someone has done a larger study/experiment, but not that I know of. This will be better than nothing for sure. Are they SKC?


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

It has been done. Unmated virgins ALWAYS lay eggs if they are capable of laying and they ALWAYS hatch into drones and if the bees in the colony have any other choice, they will ALWAYS attempt to supersede the drone layer. Just to spice up your experiment, try introducing the queen and 2 weeks later add a frame with eggs and emerging brood just to see what happens.

DarJones


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

valleyman,

Ever since I'd heard this about queens I've been wanting to check it out for myself, so here I go. I know this isn't a true "scientific experiment", but it's the best I can do to, "see for myself".

They are virgins from the bees I was maintaining, before I acquired SunKist Cordovan stock. If they do produce drone brood, I'm going to keep a place in my freezer for it.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Fusion_power (DarJones),

Thanks for the input. Do you have any references for this? I had always assumed that virgins that were unable to mate successfully went on to become drone laying queens, but at least one source says otherwise (that only mated queens ever lay eggs). That if a queen fails to mate, she will never lay eggs.

At some point I will certainly add some eggs the bees can raise themselves a proper queen from - and see what happens. I've already seen that even in a colony where a dozen mated/laying queens and ten virgin queens were banked in cages, where I kept adding open brood, that the bees raised themselves a replacement for the queens that weren't performing (since they were hindered from laying by their cages).


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## Dancing Bee Apiary (Jan 5, 2010)

The first thing I wonder is ... maybe this older virgin will go out and get mated ? I now they say there is only a short window for mating to happen. But who 
really knows maybe an old virgin will still go out?
The second thing I thought was it would be nice if your experiment was using "desirable queens" instead of " un-desirable queens".
I'm very interested to see what occurs.
I really look forward to when I retire from beekeeping, and I'm in your shoes and can take the time to test old ideas and do experiments. That sounds like beekeepers paradise.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Dancing Bee Apiary,

I also thought about the possibility of these older virgins taking a late honeymoon, so, before they are released from their cages I will move them into quarters that have queen includers/excluders over their entrances.

No matter how this first run goes, I could begin again using desirable queens.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

21 days after a queen emerges from her cell is the outside limit for mating. I have never seen a queen older than that take a mating flight. I can't say it won't happen, but would suspect it will be very unlikely.

I'm pretty sure Laidlaw and Eckert had something to say about egg laying virgins. If not, you may have to visit some old 1970's issues of Gleanings.

DarJones


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## Frontyard Beekeeper (Aug 3, 2011)

Here is a thought. If you can get an exceptional queen with the most desirable genetics to lay only drone eggs, place her in a nuc with nurse bees and all drone comb. The drones will have only her genetics and you can flood the drone pool with the best drones for your other virgins to mate with.


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## Radar (Sep 4, 2006)

While I have no opinion as to wether unmated queens will lay eggs. In the book "Better Bees" written by the late Steve Taber there is a chapter about mating by II a queen to her own drones in order to fix benificial genes. In this book he states that it is neccessary to give the unmated queens a whiff of CO2 in order for them to lay. Sue Coby also mentioned this in a lecture I attended.


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## Lost Bee (Oct 9, 2011)

Do mated queens really drone eggs?

Since a virgin queen is a haploid individual and drones are haploid I guess 
this is possible. Although the mating will create diploid eggs so this doesn't 
sound normal. If she layed diploid eggs and haploid eggs in the same 
frequency there would be lots of drones in a hive. Mating is random.

I was wondering if the female laying workers are really the drone factories of 
bee hive. Isn't true that when a mated queen bee gets old, weak,ready to swarm,
etc. that there's an abundance of drone cells compared to when she was younger? 
Could it be that these non-mated worker bees are sensing the weak queen and are
statring to lay eggs in increasing amounts which can only be raised into drones? 
For the new queen that they will need. I bet the laying workers still lay a 
few drone eggs while the queen is healthy in preparation for such events. 
But no where near as much as when she's failing. 

Also, if a mated queen died or left and the workers raise their own queen.
If this virgin queen has to wait till the drones are mature before mating. 
It could explain why *some* natural queens are not as good as queens raised 
from younger eggs like in queen rearing. That being since the longer a 
virgin queen goes unmated the weaker she'll be in eggs laying abilities 
or become a drone layer. Whcihc is probably why they say banking queens 
for long is bad news.

I guess the only way for sure is some breeder would put some type in 
pin camera in a hive and keep the film rolling to see if mated queen 
really lays drones or is it a laying worker bee laying the drone eggs.
At least, it would be interesting to know for sure.

We're lucky most honey bees doesn't have the gene that the
*Cape Honey Bee* has or there would be more laying workers 
some of which lay diploid eggs. That would cause problems 
for regular queens I bet.

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-Bees-are-Bad-News-Africa-Please-Don-t-Export

I don't think all the mysteries have been solved in honey bees yet.


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## valleyman (Nov 24, 2009)

Joseph,
I believe that many things happen in nature that is not natural. For someone to say that unmated virgins won't lay would be a bold statement. It may not happen with your experiment, but I believe that it has and will happen. I do believe that they will be drone brood. Good luck with your endeavor, and keep us posted. Guess I did have an opinion. Good luck!!


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## Lost Bee (Oct 9, 2011)

I did say I wonder. I am not betting the farm 
that it doesn't happen. At least, it's something 
to think about. 

You are entilted to your opion as we all are.
Without questioning things nothing new will 
ever be known. 

I guess it take a million mad scientists to make an einstein.  

Ok thanks, valleyman for not stinging me like others might.


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## Fusion_power (Jan 14, 2005)

Lost, All female bees whether queen or worker are diploid. They have 2 sets of chromosomes. All drones are haploid with only one set of chromosomes. Queens selectively lay either a drone egg or a fertilized female egg by manipulating the egg past the opening of the spermatheca and releasing a few sperm cells onto the micropyle of the egg. Here is a very very nice experiment that you can try if you want to have fun. Let a queen lay fresh drone eggs, they must be less than 4 hours old. Pinch a drone until he everts and collect a tiny amount of sperm onto a small glass probe. Apply the sperm to the micropyle end of the egg. Give the eggs to a queenless broodless colony and watch them rear a queen from a drone egg.

Also keep in mind that sometimes cellular division does not complete so an egg that was supposed to be a drone winds up with diploid chromosomes. This egg will hatch into a female and can become a queen if needed. Cape bees do this so much that they will sometimes stay queenless for months relying on diploid eggs from laying workers to somewhat maintain the colony.

DarJones


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## Lost Bee (Oct 9, 2011)

If that works Fusion why use artificial insemination? 

BTW, have you done this yourself? 

Just squeeze a drone like you say and apply it to an egg.
Voila a queen is born. 

I'm not sure if I would do this but if it works that's cool.


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## Dancing Bee Apiary (Jan 5, 2010)

Lost Bee;


A properly mated queen produces both the workers and all the drones in a colony. Eggs are fertilized as they are laid depending on the size of the cell ie worker or dronesized. Eggs are not fertilized during mating, but the sperm is stored for later use. 
If you know this sorry, one of your previous posts got me confused.
Your post does raise an interesting question that could be started in another thread; how viable is the sperm from worker produced drones? Can they compete with full sized normal drones?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Okay, update:
One of the two queens has begun laying, I have one medium comb face almost solid with hatching eggs and another with eggs. I'm watching to see if the brood, which is laid in worker cells, is sealed as drone brood or worker. Once I can determine that, the comb, if drone will be put into the freezer and the queen extirpated, replaced with a ripe queen cell and a frame of emerging worker brood. I expect the second queen should also begin laying any day now.


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

Fusion_power said:


> 21 days after a queen emerges from her cell is the outside limit for mating. I have never seen a queen older than that take a mating flight. I can't say it won't happen, but would suspect it will be very unlikely.


Queens fly and mate beyond 21 days on a fairly regular basis in my experience although most mate between 12-18 days after emergence.
A queen which has not mated by 30 days is unlikely to mate and will probably end up a drone layer.


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## preciousbees (Aug 30, 2011)

I took a Queen rearing class last summer. We were told that a virgin Queen can be II a long time past the natural breeding age, the instructor had a queen for several months that was sucessfully II'ed. It was also pointed out that a virgin can naturally mate up to 5 weeks, with declining results.


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## Michael Bush (Aug 2, 2002)

>?? - Can and will, older, unmated virgin queens lay eggs?

In my experience no. If they don't mate (which usually only happens if they can't fly) they don't lay.

>What will my old virgins be able to do? 

They will mate when they can and then they will lay drones.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Update:
This morning I checked on these two hives, I had recently given each one a frame of brood containing eggs. Both of them had many eggs and new larva on frames other than the donor frame (none is yet old enough to be capped - once it is I will be able to determine if drone or worker) and I also witnessed these old virgins laying. What was most interesting was that both colonies have started growing several queen cells on the donor frames only.

I will keep a close eye on these to see if they complete the process of supersedure, which is what it seems they are attempting. Apparently the bees are aware of the non-viable nature of their present queens.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Uh oh. Even though both of these old, unmated virgins had/have been laying eggs (I saw it myself). I had given each colony a frame of eggs and young larvae from known mated queens and they each promptly grew a few queen cells on these combs (they are due to emerge soon), yet these laying virgins were still in residence. What seems curious is that it appears that there is no brood being raised from either unmated virgin's eggs -- I don't really know why. I expected the bees to raise drones from these virgins, but that hasn't happened. Obviously, when I get some more free time, I'll need to redo this "experiment" in a different way.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Frontyard - that's a neat idea! If you can get viable / desirable drones, you could indeed flood an out apiary with drone stock. Are you going to try it? I lost too many colonies to poison spraying this year to try any experiments. I'd sure love to hear the results...please PM me if you try it, or post it as a thread.


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## Radar (Sep 4, 2006)

<Frontyard - that's a neat idea!>

Am I missing something here? How do you evaluate a queen if she only lays drone brood?


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

Radar,

Actually, that might be a good technique - if you could get the bees to raise drones from the unfertilized eggs the virgins lay, I couldn't.

After all, drones do not have a paternal parent, except their mother's father (a grandfather - who is ipso facto their father too, since they have no "actual" father). So their general genetic fitness is defined best by the traits of their grandmother and mother's colonies. So, one of the best ways to select drone mothers was already done when selecting the mothers of these virgin, daughters.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Radar - It was just a request for the results of an experiment that may work for him, if he is even inclined to do it. I can't do it this year due to an orchard having been sprayed with insecticides while many of my bees were in it. I have very few bees now, not enough to experiment with unknowns. 

There would be an advantage to isolating an out apiary from other colonies and flooding it with drones of a known, desirable stock. It brings up the percentage of "control" in open matings. Development of the desired traits in you stock takes fewer years. The drones from colonies with undesirable characteristics get culled and re-queened. A poor man's version of AI.


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## Radar (Sep 4, 2006)

Surely that would be pure speculation, as every queen has different fathers unless they were inseminated with pooled sperm. 

Would this be more likely to produce good genetics than packing the hive of a proven queen with drone comb in the knowledge that the drone mother had proven herself through a working colony, producing honey, gentle, calm on the the comb etc. None of that would be known only, what her mother was like.


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## Joseph Clemens (Feb 12, 2005)

My "pure speculation" is that queen mothers, selected from a well developed, specific population, i.e. Russell Apiaries SunKist Cordovan's, will produce daughters, who, in turn will also produce drones carrying their desirable genetics -- however these queens can be induced to produce drones, the genetics of the drones will be the same. Drones do not have fathers, they are produced with only an unfertilized egg, so they only have a haploid number of chromosomes - and all of their sperm are clones of themselves.

Whenever natural mating, a.k.a. open mating is used to fertilize queens that are then used as queen mothers, there is a chance for genetic variation in the daughters of those queens, and subsequently the drones those daughters produce. However, the only way that a queen used as a drone mother can be "proven", is if her drones are used to fertilize by I.I., queens that are then used to grow colonies whose desirable characteristics can then be associated with the line the drones were derived from rather than the maternal lineage (if these characteristics weren't also evident/present in the maternal lineage). This is not entirely impractical, but it is not easy, either and basically can only be used when creating a "hybrid" population - a merging of two distinct lines, each carrying distinct and unique characteristics.

My basic strategy, like kilocharlie has said, is flooding the area with drones of my choosing to increase the chances that my virgins will have the opportunity to mate with drones carrying my chosen genetics.

A queen that is mated and laying, producing a colony showing desirable characteristics is not a guarantee that her drones will carry those same genetics to the next generation of queens. It only ensures that her genetics, mixed with the genetics of the various drones she has mated with can produce a colony with desirable characteristics. Her drones still only carry her genetics, a combination from those of her mother and the drone father that was her sperm donor. So it is by its nature a speculation, though fortunately it usually produces satisfactory, or better, results.


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## kilocharlie (Dec 27, 2010)

Radar - It is in the repeating of the cycle over more time that mother-only selection and open mating tends to have similar effects to mother-and-father selection and controlled matings, not so long a time if the drone cells of undesirable colonies are destroyed and mating boxes and drone mother colonies are well-isolated from feral bee colonies.

Mother-and-father selection with controlled matings is a much faster way to get a trait you are looking for. You may get lucky one year, but year-after-year progress favors double selection. While there is variation in the most controlled group, it is not a speculation thing so much as it is statistics. 

For those who can't send queens and drones off for AI, massive drone (with desirable traits) flooding in an isolated area is as close as one can come to the rate of trait development that mother-and-father selection gives, if it is done with the assassination of all drone brood with undesirable traits.

Robert Russell didn't get lucky one year using open matings, his family has been keeping bees for 125+ years. Those sunkist queens of his are a result of good, solid research, hard work, not so much pure speculation or luck.

Also, it is not true that all queens have different fathers.


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