Behavioural Studies of Queen Introduction in the Honeybee 6. Multiple Queen Introduction

Summary

Fifteen colonies (5 groups of 3) were prepared for multiple-queen introduction. Each colony queen was caged, and kept in her colony for 9 days, then 16 queens were introduced into each colony, some after confinement in screen mailing cages for 1, 2, 3 or 4 weeks. In 12 colonies the mean weight of queens when introduced in excluder-comb cages was higher for queens that were accepted (after 24 h) than for queens that were rejected. Queens introduced without previous caging were more likely to be rejected than queens previously caged for 1–4 weeks.

Queens were removed from 8 colonies and, after 9 days of queenlessness, each colony was given 16 queens in excluder-comb cages. Half the queens had been stored (in mailing cages, each with 10 workers) for 3 days in an incubator, and half had been removed directly from nuclei. One day after the multiple-queen introduction, only 4 queens were rejected, two from each group. The weight of rejected queens was lower than the mean weight of accepted queens.

Some colonies were kept queenless prior to multiple-queen introduction; as the duration of queenlessness increased (from 1 up to 20 days), workers became less aggressive towards queens introduced in excluder cages. Laying queens 4 months old were accepted after 5 days of queenlessness, and virgins 1 and 7 days old after 20 days. The numbers of workers attracted by 40 queens of different ages in a queenless and in a queenright colony were positively correlated.

Compared with queens in screen cages, queens in excluder cages attracted more workers in a queenless colony, but released more worker aggression in a queenright colony (which was related to queen weight, age and condition).

Worker reaction to queens infected with nosema disease was also studied.