M6: DISadvantage of supercedure?

Module 6, 2005, Question 10.
"Name one disadvantage of queen supercedure"



About all I can come up with is it being harder for a lazy beekeeper to make increase.

What do you think they would be expecting as an answer?

How about this? Supercedure occurs when the bees are not happy with the queen because she is failing.
So if she dies or stops laying completely or is laying drone eggs only before the new queen hatches, and if the new queen doesn't mate successfully or is lost while on her mating flight, there will be no eggs in the hive for the bees to rear another queen, and the colony will die out unless the beekeeper intervenes.

Usually only one queen cell, so can't choose to keep the best.

No increase in hive numbers!

mintmoth said:

How about this? Supercedure occurs when the bees are not happy with the queen because she is failing.
So if she dies or stops laying completely or is laying drone eggs only before the new queen hatches, and if the new queen doesn't mate successfully or is lost while on her mating flight, there will be no eggs in the hive for the bees to rear another queen, and the colony will die out unless the beekeeper intervenes.

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i.e. increased chance of colony failure

how about

a late autumn supercedure queen may

• result in a poor mating due to cold weather causing the new queen to become a drone layer before spring
  
• go stale being unable to mate due to cold weather
  
• a poor mating due to reduced drone pool causing mating with own drones and therefore a diploid laying patern

Its a Section A question, so looking for a "one or two word or short phrase" answer.

The first problem I have is - disadvantage compared to what?
Swarming?
The old Q continuing?
Or requeening by the beekeeper? Aaah …


Supercedure often happens late in the season, but not always, and so late season mating isn't a general disadvantage of supercedure.

The possibility of a brood break (even a permanent one) exists if old Q is dispatched before new Q is laying. But they can coexist for months sometimes. So not the generality of supercedure.


I think they probably are considering the case when there are a few Q cells, and the beek (and the bees themselves) must decide whether they are superceding or swarming. Sometimes they can swarm from a very few Q cells rather than a dozen or more. Allowing potential supercedure QCs to proceed does carry some risk that they might just decide to swarm.
Beekeeper stepping in to abort supercedure and requeen with known-good Q takes away that (and poor mating and brood-break) risk.
So I'm offering as my answer -
"Some risk they just might swarm instead of superceding"

Bit of a stinker for a 1-minute question … (its taken me 24 hours to work out what the question implied )

itma said:

Its a Section A question, so looking for a "one or two word or short phrase" answer.

The first problem I have is - disadvantage compared to what?
Swarming?
The old Q continuing?
Or requeening by the beekeeper? Aaah …


Supercedure often happens late in the season, but not always, and so late season mating isn't a general disadvantage of supercedure.

The possibility of a brood break (even a permanent one) exists if old Q is dispatched before new Q is laying. But they can coexist for months sometimes. So not the generality of supercedure.


I think they probably are considering the case when there are a few Q cells, and the beek (and the bees themselves) must decide whether they are superceding or swarming. Sometimes they can swarm from a very few Q cells rather than a dozen or more. Allowing potential supercedure QCs to proceed does carry some risk that they might just decide to swarm.
Beekeeper stepping in to abort supercedure and requeen with known-good Q takes away that (and poor mating and brood-break) risk.
So I'm offering as my answer -
"Some risk they just might swarm instead of superceding"

Bit of a stinker for a 1-minute question … (its taken me 24 hours to work out what the question implied )

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Yes ,not always clear what they are asking LOL

how about as an answer "The brood break can cause lower honey yields"

but dont trust my answers as i only got a pass on module 6

Off the top of my head I can think of five major disadvantages

1) Some beekeepers select for bees with the supersedure trait as a way of reducing the incidence of swarming. However……..
Bees with Nosema often supersede queens, Many beekeepers who have been developing supersedure strains have inadvertently selected for Nosema susceptibility.

2) Supersedure in early spring or in late August can result in a drone laying queen as there may be few or no drones to mate with

3) If the supersedure is inefficient (where the "old" Queen is killed by the emerging virgin) then the resultant brood gap can occur at the “wrong time of year” for honey production. Early in April it hinders the build up needed for the colony to take advantage of the Oil seed rape flow In July and August the “brood gap” can reduce the yield on the Heather or Balsam.

4) If inefficient (imperfect) supersedure occurs in september (as it did this year in some colonies) it will hinder the production of winter bees needed to get the colony through to next spring

5) Another posssible scenario : You have a colony with undesirable characteristics which you want to requeen. So you remove “the old queen” and introduce one from a better strain using an introduction cage. However the introduction fails as there is a supersedure daughter queen present in the hive

masterBK said:

5) So you remove “the old queen” and introduce one from a better strain using an introduction cage. However the introduction fails as there is a supersedure daughter queen present in the hive

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Surely no beekeeper would be stupid enough to do a thing like this.

If they don't know supersedure has taken place then they would not expect two queens to be present in the hive (ie perfect or efficient supersedure has taken place). There are lots of beekeepers out there that have never seen two queens co-existng in a hive.

masterBK said:

If they don't know supersedure has taken place then they would not expect two queens to be present in the hive (ie perfect or efficient supersedure has taken place). There are lots of beekeepers out there that have never seen two queens co-existng in a hive.

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There really are some stupid ones then.

masterBK said:

If they don't know supersedure has taken place then they would not expect two queens to be present in the hive (ie perfect or efficient supersedure has taken place). There are lots of beekeepers out there that have never seen two queens co-existng in a hive.

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Hivemaker. said:

There really are some stupid ones then.

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IMO that's a rather uncharitable remark, Hivemaker, particularly from a forum moderator.

To be honest I'm glad if a colony supersedes the queen rather than the queen failing completely and raise emergency emergency QC's. or end up with laying workers
I really don't think this question tests the beekeepers knowledge only his train of thought.
I can only think of one possible disadvantage and that would be possible mongrel drones mating with a specific strain of queens that are known to be protective on second generation mating

itma said:

Its a Section A question, so looking for a "one or two word or short phrase" answer.

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How about:

'Who cares!'

or, to elaborate a little
'Who cares it's only a bit of worthless paper'

Or to be more technical
'Who cares - as long as you use matchsticks and have a gaping hole in the crownboard'

mintmoth said:

IMO that's a rather uncharitable remark, Hivemaker, particularly from a forum moderator.

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I'm sure you'll see far worse.

itma said:

Module 6, 2005, Question 10.
"Name one disadvantage of queen supercedure"



About all I can come up with is it being harder for a lazy beekeeper to make increase.

What do you think they would be expecting as an answer?

Click to expand...

It can happen at the end of season when mating of the new queen is very unlikely ?
It can be triggered when there is nothing really wrong with the existing queen

Good luck with it