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Wed, 16 Sep 2020 08:47:41 +0100 |
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>Not many commercial beekeepers keep meticulous records,
Only semi-commercial, but I do keep meticulous records.
Roger Patterson was quoted recently and I know that increasingly early queen failure has been a hobby-horse of his for some time. I do not share his view from my experience and the current debate has led me to do a quick analysis (I am very short of time at the moment!) of 1466 queens from my records.
The data is shown below, with the year of birth, the sample size and the number of months that the queen lived.
Year Sample Lifespan
2005 27 18
2006 118 13
2007 127 14
2008 125 11
2009 145 12
2010 142 14
2011 134 9
2012 99 12
2013 88 17
2014 134 15
2015 96 13
2016 111 17
2017 81 18
2018 39 13
I was surprised at first that lifespans were not longer, but there are caveats. All queens are recorded as soon as they start laying, so the data includes those that have failed to mate properly and do not produce viable worker brood. If these were eliminated then the figures would improve.
We still have a number of queens alive that were born in 2016/17/18. These have not been included in the data as they are still alive. Their data will of course improve the figures when they eventually die.
I have not shown the spread of lifespans, but the max were 60 months.
The most important point for me is that there has been no deterioration in the lifespan from 2005 to the present and although Roger seems to discount the effect of the weather, the dip in 2011 was certainly due to it. Colonies built rapidly, we split them, the weather went bad for weeks and many queens failed to mate properly and failing in the autumn.
It is said that many places in the world have climate, but the UK has weather! Unpredictable weather at that - at the moment we are sweltering in an Indian Summer - but tomorrow will see change!!!
Best wishes
Peter
52°14'44.44"N, 1°50'35"W
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