Friends who have farmed bees may have found a problem, that is, sometimes there are some "mini" male bees in the bee colony. Originally in the normal bee colony, the queen bee is the largest, the male bee is the second largest, the worker bee is the smallest, which can be clearly seen from the appearance, but some of the bees in the swarm are strange, there will be some bees that look as big as the worker bee, but are not the worker bees, in fact, if we look closely, we will find that in fact, these bees are all male bees.
Why is this happening in bee colonies? In fact, this is more common in bee farming, there are generally 3 situations that may lead to the male bee in the bee colony is only the size of the worker bee, let's take a specific look at how we should deal with this situation.
First: the new king lays eggs
For newly mated queen bees, it is not stable at the beginning of spawning, and it is easy to lay male eggs in the working hive. We all know that the nest room on a nest spleen, the nest room of the worker bee and the nest room of the male bee are not the same, when the queen bee lays the male bee eggs in the worker hive, because the worker hive room is relatively small, the male bee body size is naturally limited when it hatches inside, resulting in these male bees hatching, the size is only as large as the size of the worker bee, but the appearance and "heart" are male bees.
For this case, as long as our queen bee mating is normal, it will generally return to normal a few days after the queen spawns eggs, so we only need to do a good job of daily management of this colony, without having to do too much processing.
Second: the queen lays eggs
Bee is a kind of insect that will have sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction, and the asexual reproduction of the bee is still a kind of parthenogenesis, it can develop into a complete individual, the sex of the bee is determined by the number of chromosomes, when the queen bee lays fertilized eggs, such eggs will develop into worker bees in the future, when the queen bee lays unspertilized eggs, the future such eggs will develop into male bees, the specific queen bee is asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction, it mainly depends on whether the queen bee mates, that is, even if the queen does not mate, Eggs may also be laid, but it is clear that such eggs are unfertilized eggs that can only develop into males in the future.
The mating of the queen is usually affected by climatic conditions, some beekeepers may ignore climatic factors when breeding the queen bee, resulting in long-term cold weather or continuous rain after the queen is bred, resulting in the queen has not had the opportunity to fly out of the mating, the queen of the bees has a long time on the phenomenon of parthenogenesis, such bee eggs, the queen of the bees may also be born in the working hive, and the queen of the bees is spawned without mating, and the eggs laid by the queen of the bees can only develop into male bees in the future. These male bees hatch in the worker hive, resulting in a head size that is only the size of a worker bee, but it is indeed a male bee, and we see miniature male bees in the bee colony.
For this situation, once we find that the queen lays eggs in the colony, we should replace the normal queen in time, because the queen will only reproduce in parthenogenesis, which is harmful to the colony in the long run, and timely treatment is the right way.
Third: worker bees lay eggs
Although the worker bee is a bee with imperfect genital development, but the worker bee is also a female, when the bee colony loses the queen bee, and can not breed the queen bee, the ovaries of the worker bees may develop for a long time, and then the phenomenon of the worker bees laying eggs, this phenomenon is actually the same as the phenomenon of the queen laying eggs, and can only lay unfertilized eggs, the future bee colony is full of male bees, and these worker bees will not divide the division of the hive room and the male hive room when laying eggs, resulting in some male bees being laid in the working hive room, In addition, when the worker bees lay eggs, the feeding capacity in the bee colony is usually insufficient, resulting in the development of male bees being affected, not only some male bees that are only as large as the worker bees, but even some male bees are not as large as the worker bees, which we should deal with in time.
For the problem of worker bee spawning, if the eggs laid by the worker bees have hatched into young bees, it means that the bee colony has lost the king time for about 25 days, which is a huge harm to the bee colony, and the number of worker bees left in the bee colony may not be much, so the method of intervening in the new king may not be very good, if the number of worker bees is not much, it is recommended to use the method of recovering useful worker bees or dispersing and merging to solve the problem.