Events following queen removal in colonies of Africanized honeybees in South America

Abstract

The timing of queen rearing and swarming are described after queens were removed from colonies of Africanized bees. New queens were reared from newly hatched to three day old worker larvae, many of which were moved in the egg or newly eclosed larval stages by workers into newly constructed queen cells. Mortality of worker eggs and larvae following dequeening was high, averaging 50%. When new queens emerged, swarms issued from two-thirds of the colonies. This process of queen replacement and queen-loss swarming differs from that of reproductive swarming in the lack of preparation before queen loss, longer queenless interval, lack of correlation between number of swarms and sealed brood area or number of queen cells, and lack of Congestion in colonies when swarms issued.