Remote Honey Bee Breeding Centre: A Case Study of Heligoland Island in Germany

Abstract

The honey bee queen shows extreme polyandry and controlling the mating partners can only be possible either by artificial insemination or having remote isolated mating locations. Here we report on the German North Sea island of Heligoland. Because of its location 60 km from the mainland, the lack of a local population of honey bees, its size of just 1.4 ㎢ and suitable weather conditions during the months of May to July, it is considered an ideal location for controlled inseminations of high-quality virgin queen bees with drones deemed genetically superior to others. Methods how to rear virgin queen bees are described and information is provided on the numbers of queen bees, their supporting workers and drone bees that are taken to the island in the mating season. The bee most commonly involved in the Heligoland mating trials has become Apis mellifera carnica strain “Baltica”. In one summer, for example, 80 virgin queens (belonging to beekeepers from nine different locations in northern Germany) each with about 600 worker bees plus two drone populations of around 2,000 drones were taken by ship to Heligoland. On their return to the mainland no later than 3.5 weeks after the mating exercise, the beekeepers could register a mating success rate of 80%. This information can help operation management of the new remote mating centre of Weedo Island, Jeonbuk in Korea, which is currently under construction.