On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 15:04:25 +0100, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:


"Andy Hall" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:26:50 +0100, "Mary Fisher"
wrote:




It's a dependence on the chemical which we unimaginatively call 'queen
substance' (I do know the chemical name if you want it!) which the queen
exudes and is passed round the colony continuously, to every bee both
within
the hive and outside it while in a swarm. It's a marvellous process. If a
queen is removed from a colony, within as short a time as twenty minutes
the
bees are unhandleable, defensive, can sting for apparently no reason.


Is this chemical (pheramone?) individual per queen?

It is a pheromone of course and no, it's universal. There are other things
to consider when replacing one queen with another in a hive but it's nothing
to do with queen substance.

In other words, in cases where there are multiple colonies in a small
area such as a group of hives, is it used by the bees to identify
which is their colony as opposed to others?

No, that's geography and vision related. If you have two hives, left and
right, side by side and you switch them the bees from left A will return to
right, and vice versa, after foraging.

If you remove one they will all return to the other. If you introduce a
third it causes some confusion!

The same applies to even a long line of hives - but it's not recommended to
do site them like that because of drifting. The hive at the windward end
always ends up lighter than the one at the leeward end.

Some beekeepers mark the front of each hive with simple shapes for
identification. positioning the hives in different aspects is another ploy.

Visible landmarks are more important than anything else. Remember that
multiple colonies in a small area isn't the norm, honey bees are woodland
creatures and their natural home is a hollow tree.

Pheromones are only effective inside the hive.

I hope this helps :-)


Yes it does. I've always wondered about this. In my early 20s I
used to help a couple of elderly ladies (then well into their 90s and
sadly no longer with us) with their gardening. They had a plot of
land equivalent to that for three extra houses next to theirs near the
town centre. They grew vegetables, kept many hives (randomly placed)
as well as the proverbial chickens of course, and some rabbits for the
table. Visiting them was a delight because it was like going back
to the 1920s. Their house hadn't been redecorated since their father
had done it then and they saw no reason to change it or the orginal
lino everywhere.

In the summer months they would often camp out on their piece of land
with an older army tent and camp beds.

I was shown the beekeeping equipment, the pride piece of which was a
mechanical extractor looking like a kind of spindryer with a big
handle like a mangle. How on earth they operated it, I don't know,
but they did. However, they would never tell me some of the Deeper
Magic of beekeeping, and hive placement was one of them.

Now I know, and I am pretty sure that they did as well.



--

..andy

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