Module 6

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And another one please

Sources vary on this. It seems to be that there are 2 genders and that in the females there are 2 castes. Most books talk about there being 3 castes though. I think the former is correct, but most people think that latter is. What would you say in the exam?
 
Varies but up to 25 in total i would say with up to three matings flights

see PDFs from my research for November

I see you are a late crammer like me, hope i will pass module 2 but very boring ,now cramming like mad
 
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And another one please

Sources vary on this. It seems to be that there are 2 genders and that in the females there are 2 castes. Most books talk about there being 3 castes though. I think the former is correct, but most people think that latter is. What would you say in the exam?

Margrat Thomas the moderator at NHS workshop on mod 3 said female 2 castes (queen and worker) the drone is not a caste but male , ie the scientific use of caste not the general use of three in beekeepers book pre 1950(worker,drone snd queen)
 
I see you are a late crammer like me, hope i will pass module 2 but very boring ,now cramming like mad

Thanks both. I though Module 2 was dire apart from the stuff on flowers.

I am going to read your PDFs MM, but the next query bubbling is,

What evidence is there in relation to the effects of the different components of queen substance, in particular what does 9-HDA do that is different from what 9-ODA does?
 
9 ODA attracts drones to virgins on mating flight. It is also one of the main components of queen substance spread around hive by house bees. It also attracts bees to swarm cluster.

9 HDA holds swarms together, i.e. it stabilises the cluster.

I hope you are asking the questions that are coming up on Saturday.
 
I hope you are going to put my name and exam number on your paper. :hairpull:
 
also in royal jelly

The absolute configurations of hydroxy fatty acids from the royal jelly of honeybees (Apis mellifera).
Kodai T, Nakatani T, Noda N.
Source
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Setsunan University, 45-1, Nagaotoge-cho, Hirakata, Osaka, 573-0101, Japan.
Abstract
9-Hydroxy-2E-decenoic acid (9-HDA) is a precursor of the queen-produced substance, 9-oxo-2E-decenoic acid (9-ODA), which has various important functions and roles for caste maintenance in honeybee colonies (Apis mellifera). 9-HDA in royal jelly is considered to be a metabolite of 9-ODA produced by worker bees, and it is fed back to the queen who then transforms it into 9-ODA. Recently we found that 9-HDA is present in royal jelly as a mixture of optical isomers (R:S, 2:1). The finding leads us to suspect that chiral fatty acids in royal jelly are precursors of semiochemicals. Rather than looking for semiochemicals in the mandibular glands of the queen bee, this study involves the search for precursors of pheromones from large quantities of royal jelly. Seven chiral hydroxy fatty acids, 9,10-dihydroxy-2E-decenoic, 4,10-dihydroxy-2E-decenoic, 4,9-dihydroxy-2E-decenoic, 3-hydroxydecanoic, 3,9-dihydroxydecanoic, 3,11-dihydroxydodecanoic, and 3,10-dihydroxydecanoic acids were isolated. The absolute configurations of these acids were determined using the modified Mosher's method, and it was revealed that, similar to 9-HDA, five acids are present in royal jelly as mixtures of optical isomers.
PMID: 21082360 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
 
Thanks MM. Thanks BC.

I am not confident that 9-HDA acts to keep the swarm together either,per se, but it probably helps See below:

J Chem Ecol. 2006 Mar;32(3):657-67. Epub 2006 Apr 4.
Beyond 9-ODA: sex pheromone communication in the European honey bee Apis mellifera L.
Brockmann A, Dietz D, Spaethe J, Tautz J.
Source
Beegroup Würzburg, Department of Behavioral Physiology and Sociobiology, University of Würzburg, Germany. [email protected]
Abstract
The major component of the mandibular gland secretion of queen honeybees (Apis mellifera L.), 9-ODA ((2E)-9-oxodecenoic acid), has been known for more than 40 yr to function as a long-range sex pheromone, attracting drones at congregation areas and drone flyways. Tests of other mandibular gland components failed to demonstrate attraction. It remained unclear whether these components served any function in mating behavior. We performed dual-choice experiments, using a rotating drone carousel, to test the attractiveness of 9-ODA compared to mixtures of 9-ODA with three other most abundant components in virgin queen mandibular gland secretions: (2E)-9-hydroxydecenoic acid (9-HDA), (2E)-10-hydroxydecenoic acid (10-HDA), and p-hydroxybenzoate (HOB). We found no differences in the number of drones attracted to 9-ODA or the respective mixtures over a distance. However, adding 9-HDA and 10-HDA, or 9-HDA, 10-HDA, and HOB to 9-ODA increased the number of drones making contact with the baited dummy. On the basis of these results, we suggest that at least 9-HDA and 10-HDA are additional components of the sex pheromone blend of A. mellifera.
 
Most of the books on the list are pre-2006. If you quote this you might get extra marks.

Here's another query.
Do the bees in the winter cluster move from the outside to the inside to "warm up" when they become too cold?
Winston says they do, Yates says they don't only movement is from inside to out when they overheat?
 
Sorry BC. I couldn't find out. Celia is silent on the matter, as in Jurgen and and Seeley and the internet did not help.

Anyone know the average weight in Mg of a propolis load?
 
Most of the books on the list are pre-2006. If you quote this you might get extra marks.

Here's another query.
Do the bees in the winter cluster move from the outside to the inside to "warm up" when they become too cold?
Winston says they do, Yates says they don't only movement is from inside to out when they overheat?

This is what the Bucks Beekeeping notes say:

"The bees in the shell continually exchange places with those within the core in order warm themselves prior to returning to the shell and conserving heat."


I like the idea of it. It is like penguins on the ice, but I suspect it is not true, because when the temperature is low the temperature of the mantle ( the outside of the cluster) is below the temperature at which bees can easily move, so I don't reckon they will be moving 'all the time'.
 
Blimmin hec professor!

It says (I think)... most of the heater bees of the Winter cluster are on the inside of the cluster, and this is the least wasteful way of a superorganism to regulate its temperature. From time to time heater bees come to the surface of the cluster [to warm their sisters] is how I read it.

"Evaluation of 21 h of recordings from night-time (21:00 h–08:00 h) showed that bees appeared on the cluster surface at a rate of
6–80 bees h–1. All of them were endothermic, with a mean Thead
of 21.6±3.58°C, a Tthorax of 27.5±4.09°C and a Tabdomen of
20.9±3.62°C (N=1183 values, 781 bees; compare Fig. 1). Of
these bees, 90% re-entered the cluster within 10 s, and the rest
re-entered within 3 min. We conclude that visiting the surface
by endothermic bees is part of the natural behaviour in winter
clusters."
 
Blimmin hec professor!

It says (I think)... most of the heater bees of the Winter cluster are on the inside of the cluster, and this is the least wasteful way of a superorganism to regulate its temperature. From time to time heater bees come to the surface of the cluster [to warm their sisters] is how I read it.

"Evaluation of 21 h of recordings from night-time (21:00 h–08:00 h) showed that bees appeared on the cluster surface at a rate of
6–80 bees h–1. All of them were endothermic, with a mean Thead
of 21.6±3.58°C, a Tthorax of 27.5±4.09°C and a Tabdomen of
20.9±3.62°C (N=1183 values, 781 bees; compare Fig. 1). Of
these bees, 90% re-entered the cluster within 10 s, and the rest
re-entered within 3 min. We conclude that visiting the surface
by endothermic bees is part of the natural behaviour in winter
clusters."

remember to quote Stabentheiner 2006, as some of the BBKA moderators don't believe heater bee exist ( think DANBEE said that, but not sure)

i can always find the abstracts but I am a dyslexic solar physicists so dont understand them LOL, i think the heater bees just popped out for a fag
 
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Cramming starting here. Been one of those weeks (read years). And I won't be doing heater bees.

A semiochemical is just a communication substance.

This is an A-level type exam...not a Masters dissertation...:hairpull:
 
remember to quote Stabentheiner 2006, as some of the BBKA moderators don't believe heater bee exist ( think DANBEE said that, but not sure)
Typo? Stabentheiner 2003 in the link.

Quite a few later papers from the same group, including recent ones about the age of the bees who generate heat in an active brood area. Gist seems to be that newly emerged bees don't have the ability to generate heat until their flight muscles develop. The colony relies on older bees to provide heat to the brood nest and that heat is not only required for brood but to complete the development of bees during the days after they emerge.

It's a problem in any exam setting that a mark scheme follows from the assumptions of the question setter. In areas like insect physiology where active research and modern instrumentation are improving understanding it doesn't help when the reading list is so dated.
 
Have you ever seen the W left on sealed brood combs where there is no brood on the wire? Is that for heater bees, I think not. Heater bees are certainly accepted by the BBKA examiners but what they might dispute is that spaces are deliberately left scattered around in slabs of brood for them to go into headfirst to heat the brood around them. However if the candidate quotes this then marks will be rewarded especially if the source is named. Examiners do try to keep themselves up to date with all the latest research (possibly more than you think and certainly more than most candidates). Marking schemes are not rigid so they will not only take into account answers based on the latest research but will also accept material gleaned from texts which by their very nature are often out of date on several things by the time they are published. The booklist is being updated at the moment.
 
Examiners do try to keep themselves up to date with all the latest research (possibly more than you think and certainly more than most candidates)...
Not having a go at BBKA examiners in particular, it's a general feature of exam technique. Best strategy is to stick to 'standard' answers, tick the box and move on. The 'best' candidates may well know more but won't waste time writing explanation since the chances of an unorthodox point being accepted will always be less than 100%.

Exams are imperfect instruments. There are elements closer to crossword puzzles; given limited time, work out what the setter is expecting. The limit is the amount that can be written, not what can be known.

There's a phenomenon that turns up occasionally where a newspaper runs a GCSE paper past a celebrity academic. They rarely score top marks because ten minutes are spent considering specialist detail. It might get another mark in that section but ten minutes would get more marks elsewhere where the intended scope of the question was misinterpreted.
 

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