Effect of Queens Density, Cage Level and Position of Honeybee Mated Queens Stored for Different Periods in Queen-Right Bank Colonies on Their Supersedure Rate

Abstract

Honey bee queen-right bank supersedure queen storage level queen storage position This study was carried out in the apiary yard of Agricultural Experimental Station, Faculty of Agriculture, Cairo University, Giza Governorate, Egypt, during the active season of 2014, (from March to October). The work determined the effect of stored queens densities (20, 30 and 40 queen / colony), cage level (upper and lower levels) and it's position (peripheral and middle positions) on the supersedure rate of queens stored in queen-right colony for 45 and 75 days. Storing mated queens in the mentioned densities had a significant effect on their replacement rate, as the lowest significant replacement rate was for storing 20 and 30 mated queens (20.0% and 30.0%, respectively), while density of 40 queens had the highest significant percentage (45.0%). Concerning the upper and lower levels of storing cages, the mean percentages of supersedure reached it's highest rank when the cages contained queens stored in the lower level (35.0%) of the holding frame, while the upper level had a less significant mean of replacement recording 25.0%. Queens stored at the peripheral position had a higher significant supersedure rate (45.0%), while only 20.0% of the queens stored in the middle position have been replaced. Supersedure rate was influenced positively with increase of storage period, as queens stored for 75 days had the highest significant replacement rate (35.6%) comparing to the 45 days storage period (27.2%).The overall supersedure rate ranged from 30.0% to 32.5% throughout the experiments, which encourage and give another importance to of storing mated honeybee queens. INTRODUCTION Naturally, there is only one queen in honeybee colony that laying eggs and control various activities of her nest. The presence of more than one queen can be occurred in honeybee colony for short periods at the time of swarming or queen replacement (Michener, 1974 and Winston, 1987). However, the existence of more than one queen in the same colony for a long period can be achieved in the two-queens colony system (Moeller, 1976), or in a reservoir colony system (Reid, 1975) by using a physical barrier such as a queen excluder or wire screen to separate individual queens. According to Woyke (1984), honeybee colonies headed by 1 year old queens harvested 27% more honey than those with 2 years old queens. Akyol et al. (2008) reported that about 71% less honey was produced from colonies with 3 years old queens than colonies with 1 and 2 years old.