Overwintering of Honeybee Queens 2. Maintenance of Caged Queens in Queenless Colonies

Abstract

SummaryMated honeybee queens were wintered in queenless colonies in various individual cages for 3 successive winters. In 1972–73 each wintering colony received 16 queens, each in a separate small compartment of a special comb. The compartments were covered with 3-mm mesh screen (screen-comb cage = SCC, 160 queens) or queen excluder (excluder-comb cage = ECC, 212 queens). Significantly more queens survived the first month after introduction in SCC than in ECC. At the end of November the colonies were grouped for wintering under field conditions, queens in SCC and ECC; in unheated flight-room with 12 h illumination, queens in ECC; with 8 h light, queens in SCC and ECC. The number of queens surviving was not significantly different. The number of queens surviving showed a significant negative correlation with duration of confinement for SCC queens; for ECC queens, after a rapid decrease, the number of survivors remained about the same, regardless of wintering conditions.Queen losses, supersedures and net weight gains were not significantly different in small colonies headed by queens from ECC and SCC, and in colonies wintered outdoors.In 1973–74 wintering in ECC, 123 of 128 queens survived 1 month, but only 14 survived 6 months' wintering. In 1974–75 wintering in ECC, all queens were accepted but some queens escaped and were detrimental to the caged ones. Only two queens survived the 8 months' confinement.