Pete >But, does being bigger and having more ovarioles translate into being a better queen? Maybe not. 


I seem to remember Tarpy being unequivocal about larger size queens equaling quality at EAS a few years back when he introduced his lab's new evaluation service. 

I can't see how having more ovarioles hurts a queen and quite the opposite seems more likely. If my math is correct and a single ovariole can produce about five eggs per day (Collison et al.) then a well-mated queen with 430 ovarioles is in the 2150 egg a day range while a well-mated queen with 280 is in the 1400 range.  Maybe eggs per day mean nothing but that's only one measure and the study you mentioned originally, added in advantageous gene expression with larger queens, and that's more likely important.  

In the 2017 study below there are many citations that associate queen size with quality and also some that don't.  It's not a given but most notable queens in my apiary are not the small ones. 

Queen Quality and the Impact of Honey Bee Diseases on Queen Health: Potential for Interactions between Two Major Threats to Colony Health
Esmaeil Amiri, Micheline K. Strand, Olav Rueppell, and David R. Tarpy  

While we're at it, what is a better queen? 

Bill Hesbach
Cheshire CT
President of the Connecticut Queen Breeders Cooperative ( be careful what you agree to)  

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