The Third Hive

Many thanks to Chad Ragland of Apis Hive Company (http://www.apishive.com/) for getting us a replacement hive for our queenless Carniolans!  Due to some logistical issues (he's based in Grand Junction CO and we are in Aurora CO), he is letting us keep the Carniolans.  This will allow for us to finish our expirement to see if the Carns will create a new queen out of the Italian brood frame we pt in at the first inspection.

Theoretically, the Carns will pick a few to several of the eggs and turn them in to queens.  All eggs hatch in about four days and become very tiny larvae.  For the next four days the nursery bees (recently pupated worker bees) will feed all the larvae royal jelly, a protein rich substance that they create from a special gland.  But they will continue to feed the royal jelly to the ones they pick to become queens.  It's believed that this extra protein allows the larvae's sexual organs to fully develop, whereas in the rest of the larvae, those organs become the stinger and venom sacs. 

The queens develop a bit faster than the rest of their sister worker bees, going through the entire growth cycle in about 21 days.  The first queen to hatch will seek out the other queen cells, break into them and sting the undeveloped queen to death.  This is about the only thing the queen uses her stinger for (excluding self defense from marauding bees or wasps looking to steal honey).

On our next inspection of the hives, we'll be looking for queen cells, peanut-shaped protrusions from the comb.  The thing I find fascinating is that...well this will sound silly...a bee is a bee.  The Carniolans are taking care of Italian brood and will raise an Italian queen to take over the egg-laying duties of the hive.  They care not a whit that their time as Carniolans is limited.  Once the queen mates, and it won't be with any drones from the Carns (they killed or expelled them before the first inspection), they will slowly die away without leaving a genetic difference in the hive.  Within a few weeks, only Italians will exist in that hive.  But they couldn't have gotten to that point if it weren't for the selfless efforts of their Carniolan nurses.

Posted by Bob Nelson