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Laying Workers in Honey Bees
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This page deals with laying workers that result in
queenless colonies, the sort of laying worker activity that occurs
under queenright situations is dealt with on the
Worker Policing page.
Delay = 7 days or so
Worker ovary development
Norman Carreck points out... "There is a whole chapter
on laying workers in Ribbands' "The behaviour and social life of
honeybees", which although published in 1953 is I think still
reasonable. There's a bit in Seeley's "Wisdom of the hive",
but probably the best account is in Winston's "The biology of the
honey bee". There's also a review of the subject in: Page, R.E.,
Erikson, E.H. (1988) Reproduction by worker honey bees. Behavioral
Ecology and Sociobiology 23, 117-126."
There is a difficulty in re-queening colonies with laying
workers, which can be overcome by removing the laying workers and
allowing the colony to be totally devoid of egg layers for a time.
The simple cure for laying workers... Move the entire hive
into the middle of the field or a hundred yards or so from it's
original position. Shake or brush all bees from every comb and all
hive parts on to the ground. All the workers look alike whether
'normal' or 'laying', so you must not miss one as it could be a laying
one. Replace the hive back on it's original stand for the flying bees
to return to. The laying workers will not return to the hive, at
least that is the traditional wisdom. However it has been discovered
that many laying workers are able to fly normally. Notwithstanding
that... In those few cases that I have observed 'it worked', exactly
what the mechanism was is open to debate.
The period that you need to leave the bees queenless before
they will accept a cell or another queen depends to an extent on how
long they have been without a queen, but there are no female eggs in
the hive at this stage or any larva that are young enough to become
emergency queens. So a few hours to a day should be enough, but be
aware that some workers may be on the point of turning into 'layers'
and any prolonged period without a queen could result in all your hard
work going to waste.
Incidence of Dopamine and its metabolites in brains of
reproductive workers in honeybees. Has been studied by K. Sasaki and
T. Nagao. They set out to explore the role of dopamine and it's
metabolites in worker honey bees. Levels of dopamine and it's
breakdown products were measured in the brains of both normal workers
and queenless workers.
Dopamine and two metabolites of dopamine...
N-acetyldopamine (NADA) and norepinephrine were detected in bee brain
extracts. The brain levels of dopamine, NADA and norepinephrine were
in proportion with ovary development. Individual bees with high
dopamine levels also had high levels of NADA or norepinephrine,
suggesting that these metabolites may be involved in the change of
reproductive developmental state of workers. Dopamine was distributed
mainly in the protocerebrum, whereas NADA was also found in the optic
lobes. Dopamine levels, in each distinct brain region, were higher in
queenless workers than in normal workers, as was the NADA level in the
optic lobes.
These results indicate that dopamine may be stored in, and/or
released from the protocerebrum and the deutocerebrum. Diffusion to
the optic lobes, where dopamine secretory cells are absent, is also
possible, giving rise to high NADA levels in the optic lobes. These
levels of dopamine and NADA may well aid reproductive development in
laying workers or may be a result of such development that was caused
by other unsuspected mechanisms.
THIS PAGE IS A BETA EDITION AND MAY CONTAIN ERRORS
