HONEY BEE & POLLINATION

Introduction and early performance of queen bees

  • 44 pages

  • Published: 1 May 2003

  • Author(s): Rhodes, John, Somerville, Doug

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The Australian beekeeping industry comprises a number of groups of specialists such as honey producers, queen bee breeders, honey packers, pollinators etc. Each group relies upon the expertise of one or more of the other groups for the success of their own business.
This project examined the quality of queen bees produced by a commercial queen bee breeder based in Queensland using standard production methods. The queen bees were introduced into two
commercially operated honey production apiaries in different areas of NSW. Numbers of queen bees
surviving the introduction process, and those surviving 15 weeks after introduction were recorded.
Same aged sister queens to those introduced into honey production hives were forwarded to the
CSIRO Entomology Laboratory, Canberra where they were examined for pheromone levels, disease
presence, and a number of physical characteristics considered likely to impact on survival success of
the queens.