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Comment by bpodgursky | Hacker News Reader

> humans are splitting up stronger hives into weaker hives

That's not really an accurate way of describing beekeeping procedure. Yes hives are split, but that's how hives reproduce in nature. "Weaker" hives just start smaller and grow.

Not that CCD isn't worth looking into, but it's not like the average hive comes out weaker.

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My understanding is that CCD is defined by an increase in overwintering losses of whole hives. But overwintering losses of hives are something that happens with or without a new disease, and represent essentially a livestock management problem for beekeepers.

Losses are made up for by splitting hives and introducing new queens, which are bought on an open market. You can see the price for a new queen right now; it's low tens of dollars.

>In the survey, a hive loss was attributed to colony collapse if varroa or other mites were ruled out as a cause; few dead bees were found in a hive, a sign that they fled; a queen bee and food reserves were both seemingly normal pre-collapse; and food reserves were left alone after fleeing.

How are the queens produced? Do they naturally just occur in the hive or are there ways to trigger embryonic bees to become queens?

Fascinatingly, you can intentionally induce it. First Googleable cite I could find: http://www.glenn-apiaries.com/queenrear.html

Agriculture: security research as applied to biology.

Life is information embodied physically to take care of itself. Starting with the first vaguely reproducing whatever, all the way down to us DNA-encoded eukaryotes.

It should not be surprising if some aspects of biology are analogous to aspects of computing. In fact it isn't even an analogy.

All workers are also females, and they start out the same egg as a queen (fertilized). The workers choose to create a queen which has mature reproductive organs by what it feeds the larva. Specifically, NOT feeding it honey and pollen, typical worker larva food, and continuing a diet of royal jelly. Once the larva exceeds a certain age (typically 4-6 days), the path is set and cannot be changed.

Look up how you split a hive (basically you take some brood cells, and some food and a load of bees and put them in a new hive). The bees realise they are queenless and raise some brood to be queens. The first queen to emerge goes and kills the others being raised. Slightly strangely for a very organised species, the winner often isn't the best option and is usually the queen who emerges first. However the better queens are those that were fed royal jelly for longer. Mating flights(s) then occur and then she is ready to go like crazy laying eggs, sometimes up to 2000 per day.

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