Fact sheet: Mating for queen quality
Honey bee queens mate with 12 males on average. By mating with a large number of males, queens avoid low brood viability. Additional benefits include...
HONEY BEE & POLLINATION
Fact sheet: Artificial insemination of honey bee queens – how many mates is enough?
4 pages
Published: 5 Dec 2018
Author(s): Ben Oldroyd, Nadine Chapman
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Project Overview
Assessing the mating quality of Australian queen bees
1 September 2015 – 30 April 2018
In this study we examined whether colonies headed by queens inseminated with the semen of 16 males outperformed colonies headed by queens inseminated with the semen of 8 males. The study found genetic diversity reduces the likelihood of brood inviability, colony failure and disease incidence, while increasing colony size and amount of honey produced.