Age of Breeder Queens

[Brandy]

OK, so I'm starting to hear alot about the evaluation of queen's in terms of how many years she's heading a hive. 2 year's to make an evaluation on the queen's performance before being selected to Breeder Queen status. I'm curious how many beeks are out there with 2 year old queen's that are still productive. Queens that are reared under optimum conditions in the summer, overwintered in a nuc or possibly deep and med., then comes into full production in the following spring and summer. Hopefully, well mated, and continues into the fall and overwinters again. What are the consensus that she will still be viable for another full season before selection as a potential breeder queen. Are these goals that we should be including into our breeding programs to expect our queens to go through 2 full production years with 2 overwintered cycles thrown in??? That's a lot of 2,000-3,000 eggs a day.

[Michael Bush]

My typical breeder is two or three years old. I don't know anything about them until they are at least one.

"We maintained that a queen will never do as well in the season she is born as when she has reached her prime the following season they are born. The view is commonly held that young queens are essential to ensure safe wintering of colonies, and also obtaining the best results on the Moor. These view doubtless hold good where a colony is headed by an old or failing queen, but all our experience has shown that the most populous colonies with the strongest force of field bees for gathering the heather crop are provieded by queens in their prime, that is in the year following their birth. The same holds good in regard to wintering." --Beekeeping at Buckfast Abbey, Brother Adam

[tarheit]

I think it's unrealistic to expect queens to be productive for 2 years, naturally mated or II. You do need to run them over a full season to measure productivity, wintering, etc. but I wouldn't expect them to last 2 full years on average.

Sue Cobey found that both naturally mated queens and II queens are productive for about the same period of time, 18 months on average. I think it basically comes down to the math, number of sperm, number of eggs laid, sperm released per egg, etc.

-Tim

[tecumseh]

well brandy when most folks think of breeder queens (queen mother hives) now days I would think most folks (who produce any volume of queens) are referring to AI (or II) queens. I would be surprised to find an AI queen productive after two season... but perhaps some do.

the tarheit writes:
Sue Cobey found that both naturally mated queens and II queens are productive for about the same period of time, 18 months on average. I think it basically comes down to the math, number of sperm, number of eggs laid, sperm released per egg, etc.

tecumseh replies:
other considerations would also be how the queen cell was produced and the hives exposure to varroa. the time line of varroa infestation from minor problem to hive collapse should also be about 18 months to 2 years.

[Brandy]

The reason for the post and the question's has to do with different breeding programs requesting or suggesting the evaluation of 2 year old stock. I thought it was a good idea, but in reality I don't think I still have viable queens after 2 production years and 2 overwintering cycles. I would agree that the first season after grafting would be a queen in her prime, and that's when I would be selecting based on all the requirements being met. The second season I would be looking for supercedure cells. Maybe this is part of the improvement that different breeders are looing for in increasing longevity. Just wondered if any other breeders are using 2-3 year old breeder queens. Check out SW Survivor project.

[tarheit]

I guess my concern would be, If you are selecting on 2 year old queens is the selection being based on genetics, or how well the queen was raised and mated. Does the 2 year old queen have better genetics, stored more sperm, laid fewer eggs stretching out the amount of sperm she has (could be environmental and/or genes), or are there possibly some queens that have finer control over the release of sperm (which could be genetic). I simply don't know.

I wouldn't discount a 2 year old breeder that was superior after 1 season and remains superior after the 2nd. I just can't say with any certainty that the 2 year old is genetically better in any way simply because of her age. There are just to many factors completely outside of the control of genetics that may determine this. (Age when inseminated, care before and after, how well the virgin was raised, number of workers in the hive, fertility of the drone, etc. can all affect the amount of sperm stored which is only one factor).

Assuming disease or pests don't shorten the queens life prematurely, ability to lay eggs is the limiting factor I think in queen longevity. In a normal production hive Sue found 18 months, which agrees almost perfectly with the math:
4.5 million sperm/1500 eggs per day (average)/5.5 sperm released per egg /30 days per month = 18.2 months

Granted there is a lot of variation in each of those numbers which explains 2 and 3+ year old queens. I've read about breeding programs in Europe that have kept queens for 7+ years by confining them to a nuc, limiting their egg laying. On the other side there are operations in Australia that have to requeen every year or more often because they run their bees 12 months out of the year with virtually no down time.

I guess the bottom line is, that if you are using age as a factor, you need to carefully watch the other factors because you may be selecting for something unintended. An article in ABJ or Bee Culture a few years ago was about a breeding program that was selecting simply for low mite counts (natural mite fall I believe). In theory may sound good, but the researchers found that the program ultimately was just selecting for queens that produced less brood. Certainly these queens would live longer, but they were far less productive hives.

-Tim

[Michael Bush]

Queen longevity:
From "Better Queens" page 18:
"In Indiana we had a queen we named Alice which lived to the ripe old age of eight years and two months and did excellent work in her seventh year. There can be no doubt about the authenticity of this statement. We sold her to John Chapel of Oakland City, Indiana, and she was the only queen in his yard with wings clipped. This, however is a rare exception. At the time I was experimenting with artificial combs with wooden cells in which the queen laid."--Jay Smith

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Queen%20Alice

[BjornBee]

Queen longevity:
From "Better Queens" page 18:
"In Indiana we had a queen we named Alice which lived to the ripe old age of eight years and two months and did excellent work in her seventh year. There can be no doubt about the authenticity of this statement. We sold her to John Chapel of Oakland City, Indiana, and she was the only queen in his yard with wings clipped. This, however is a rare exception. At the time I was experimenting with artificial combs with wooden cells in which the queen laid."--Jay Smith

http://www.bushfarms.com/beesbetterqueens.htm#Queen%20Alice

What year was this story from? Thank you.

[BjornBee]

Never mind, I see it was written or published in 1949. Certainly at a time when many of the problems associated with queen and colony health, may of been far less than what it is today. I'm glad however that he at least indicated that it is "rare exception".

[Bud Dingler]

i had a queen named 502 that produced a record crop of honey for me in 2004 of 530 pounds. most of my beekeeping friends did not want to believe me but my two employees can vouch for the tonnage and the records we kept for each super and or deep we added and removed. we number our honey supers by hive# and then each super being A,B, C or whatever. 502 hit super letter "M". some were supers and some were deeps we used to collect honey.

anyhow that was in her second summer and we used her for mating for another couple of years. her third season honey production was less but still an impressive 320 pounds.

it was a hot line of bees but an incredible ability to lay brood in a massive build up and little swarming inclination.

i smushed her last spring when she could not get up enough brood to get the colony underway after overwintering.

[tecumseh]

brandy ask:
Just wondered if any other breeders are using 2-3 year old breeder queens.

tecumseh replies:
well I don't consider myself a queen breeder but in my playing around with raising a few queens for myself (I also buy queens as both mated queens and as cells) I certainly do use 2 to 3 year old queens. I really pay more attention to the drone side of the mating.

the fairly well known queen breeder just down the road from here (and who I sometime call neighbor) told me thay had one queen acquired from Brother Adam that lived to be about 5 years old. I have no idea how they utilized that particular queen.