Subject: Virgin queen confrontation: has anyone seen this?

From: [email-masked] (Adam Finkelstein)
Date: 15 Sep 1996 12:20:53 GMT

Hello,
I'm doing some digging and I wondered if anyone had seen actual virgin to
virgin confrontations in a hive. If you have and feel like describing
what you saw, please do--it would help me out.

SW Virginia, cooling off, nights to 50 degrees F, strong Fall flow on,
Hives with Apistan, no varroa, hives without Apistan, 20% of adult bees
carrying mites.

Adam 
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Adam Finkelstein                    
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (John Caldeira)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 21:33:17 GMT

>what you saw, please do--it would help me out.

I never actually saw a fight, but can tell you it happens FAST.  A
friend and I were late moving cells from cell building colonies into
mating nucs, and the virgins were hatching that day.  We lost a lot
of virgins, and estimate the first ones to have hatched less than 18
hours before we got there (could be up to 24 hours, but no more).
The hatched virgins went after each other before we got there, but
the ones that were still in cells were OK.  It was a bummer.

  This is when we learned the hard way that queen development can
vary depending on temperature or other factors.

John Caldeira
Dallas, Texas, USA
[email-masked]