> Seeley (1978) reported that 79% of queens survived for one year in unmanaged colonies, 26% for 2 years, and no queen survived 3 years. One controlled study of queen survival in commercial colonies in California demonstrated that only 61% of established queens lived longer than 10 months (Gordon et al., 1995). A similar study conducted in Mexico under very different conditions showed that only 28% survived more than 12 months (Guzman-Novoa et al., 1998). 

Basil Furgala did some work on how long the original queen was in a hive.  I think this was from the early 1980's or even before that.  Basil gave us a talk on this when an Aussie beekeepers tour visited him in 1986.  As I recall he was using Starline queens.  I do not have access to the data but someone else may.  It would be interesting as this was before varroa and tracheal mites.

Here where I was doing annual requeening in autumn, around March, I had the queens marked so I know that when I was requeening there would have been around 80% of the original queens still in the hives.  No hard data just my observation.

Trevor Weatherhead
AUSTRALIA
 

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