bees/incest

[kendo2]

Explaining the nuptual flight to my grandson.With the bee's being The queen,the soldiers,the workers,the drones. Explaining that the drones chase the queen when they swarm and the queen returns to the hive to lay her eggs and the drones are then either dead from the flight or killed on returning to the hive.My grandson said from what your saying the drones are mateing with their own mother.Having quickly passed him back to his parents.(Ouch! Kids today). So please any beekeepers.Does the Queen start a new coloney? Is there a new blood line created?Should my grandson be teaching me?

[Clanad]

Having kept bees for several years, the truth of the matter is that breeding and gene manipulation in bees is quite difficult. Further, the drones relationship to the queen is sister/brother rather than mother/son. I suppose that could still offend some sensibilities, but that's the nature of it. It's a complex subject, but new queens are bred and developed by a combination of the time of the year and the size and age of the original hive. When a series of new queens are about to emerge, the old queen departs the hive with a large number of workers (which, by the way are always female and all sisters) and some drones, which are all males, but useless except for mating (somethings never change, no?) The first new queen to emerge kills all other queens and establishes the old/new hive... Most honey bees in the U.S., at least, are a combination of various "races" of European bees, but now the "Africanized" bees from South America are making some inroads, although there are attempts to control or eradicate their spread... I probably haven't answered all your questions, but again, it's a very complex subject, quite unlike the selective breeding of any other animal or insects...

[kendo2]

Thank you Clanad.

Oh the life of a Drone.Or maybe not its a painful ending even if you are the "lucky one"!!! Even female spiders eat their mate after the deed is done. If there is reincarnation I'm coming back as a Woman.

Thanks again Clanad. (Grandson said to say thank you too.)