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in her seventh year, but superseded in that year; of another still 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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