Queen ringing vs. queen caging for summer brood interruption

Abstract

In many temperate regions, increasing temperatures in the autumn and winter result in shorter or even non-existent brood breaks in honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) colonies. This facilitates a year-round reproduction of Varroa destructor and corresponding pathogen pressure. To address this problem, introducing an artificial brood break during winter might be essential. On the other hand, queen caging in summer, as one of the most prominent brood interruption methods, has already been accepted as an effective way for Varroa control in honey bee colonies. In this study, we compared queen caging vs. queen ringing as a novel technique for inducing summer brood interruption.

Keywords:

• Honey bee queen
• brood interruption
• colony development
• queen ringing

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ruiyi Cheng (程瑞益) and Xianguo Qin (秦现国) for their contribution during the data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the earmarked fund for China Agriculture Research System (Grant No. CARS-44-KXJ1), and the Agricultural Science and Technology Innovation Program (CAAS-ASTIP-2023-IAR).