Geoff asked: "You are assuming that long life in a queen is proxy for
long lived
workers. Do you have evidence for this?"
Not evidence of my own but the following quotes are from Beowulf
Cooper's book The Honeybees of the British Isles.
p.22. LONGEVITY If 100 workers are marked in May, some can still be
found ten weeks later, in an average summer. Strains with long-lived
workers tend to beget long-lived queens.Queens of any native strain
should live for 36 months in full production, and those of the better
strains should live for 48-60 months when kept in a single BS broodbox.
If kept in a smallish colony, as in breeding or propagation work, they
occasionally last much longer. This is of great value in monostrain
formation, in progeny testing, .............Longevity is the mechanism
by which bees kept in hives with relatively small brood boxes manage to
get such large honey crops in poor as well as good seasons. It is the
long-lived bee which build up to a populous colony at the season of
maximal honeyflow, which shows the need for prolificacy to be false.
p.48 LONGEVITY i) of workers and ii) of queens. With both there is a
maximal chance of colony and queen survival if the queen is failing in
autumn or winter or in prolonged summer bad weather. Many swarms of
northern temperate strains of bees, however, are also long-lived.
P.125 LONGEVITY. ......I have good evidence of a queen still effective
in her seventh year, but superseded in that year; of another still
laying well in her ninth year;and of a third queen which, given away as
'too old' at two years of age, headed a productive colony for several
years and was still laying, but only just, in her tenth year.
......Since long-lived queens will usually beget long-lived workers, it
is also of value to the honey producer.........
..........these queens are often wonderful honey-producers in their
second and subsequent years.
...........On balance the advantages to the breeder are such as to
make him wish to increase this valuable propensity"
End of quotes, but commenting on the last line above, I think that
Cooper was thinking of the breeder also being the beekeeper. If a
commercial breeder is simply producing them for sale, it is in his
interests that they are short lived so the customer has to come back
soon to buy a replacement. For the benefit of readers in the US, "BS"
on p22 refers to the British Standard brood box, which has a capacity
of a bushel.
Chris
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