Abstract
A productivity of queen bee depends on several factors. Queen age is one of the most important factors affecting queen’s, as well as colony performance. The study was conducted to determine the effects of queen ages on performances of honeybee (Apis mellifera) colonies. The queens were reared from local honeybee, Apis mellifera bandasii (A. m. bandasii); nuclei colonies were formed and then transferred to standard Langstroth hives when all the frames of the nuclei boxes were occupied with brood and adult bees. Performances of the colonies headed by the new queens were evaluated over three years. Brood area, number of queen cell cups started and swarm queen cells constructed, number of empty cells/100 cells/per colony (brood solidness) and honey yield per harvest were determined every active season for three consecutive years. Colonies headed by 1-, 2- and 3-year-old queens produced 4721.43±511.85, 5523.08±490.07 and 3433.82±413.83 cm2 sealed brood, and constructed 0.07±0.07, 2.23±0.52 and 9.90±1.89 queen cell cups and swarm cells/colony with 1.86±0.38, 2.40±1.65 and 8.85±2.52 empty cells/100 cells/per colony, respectively. Honey harvested from 1- and 3-year-old queen colonies averaged 13.34±1.11 and 10.50±2.04 kg/colony/harvest, respectively. The colonies headed by 1-, and 2-year-old queens had more brood areas, better brood solidity, less number of queen cells but no significant differences in honey production compared to colonies headed by 3-year-old queens. Our results indicate that queen age has a significant effect on colony performances, suggesting that requeening every three years is adequate for our local honeybee colonies.
Highlights
A productivity of queen bee depends on several factors
The current result indicates that queen age may be among the important elements that affect brood production performance of a colony and needs due attention during making management decisions based on whether a queen is judged to be good or failing
There were no significant variations among colonies headed by queens of different ages, colonies headed by 1-year-old queens gave higher amount of honey yield, approximately 27% times more honey than that produced by colonies headed by 3-year-old queens
Summary
A productivity of queen bee depends on several factors. Queen age is one of the most important factors affecting queen quality [1, 2] that influences brood production, colony growth rate and productivity of the colonies [3]. The lesser the amount of queen pheromones in turn affect queens’ attraction to workers [6] and queens’ power to inhibit building of swarm queen cells [7], which can reduce colonies productive performances. Different studies conducted in temperate climates of England, New Zealand and Poland, revealed that colonies headed by a year old queens have shown better performance than those head by two years old queens [8,9,10]. A study conducted in Israel (under subtropical condition) found that colonies headed by 7 to 10-months-old queens had higher brood areas, constructed less swarm queen cells and produced more honey than those headed by up 20-month-old queens during nectar flow season [11]. Yearly requeening of a colony in commercial apiaries has been implemented as a routine practice in countries like Israel [11], as queen’s reproductive physiology is greatly affected by the climatic conditions of an area where the honeybee colonies kept [12]
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