Possible implications for the support of keeping bees in smaller colonies.

>We found that individuals in large colonies were consistently shorter lived than individuals in small colonies. This experimental effect occurred in both >principal life history phases of honey bee workers, the in-hive and the foraging stage, independently of the age of the workers at their transition between >the two. Nevertheless, this age of first foraging was a key determinant of worker longevity, in accordance with previous studies. The large colonies raised >more brood, built more comb, and foraged at higher rates. Our results do not comply with the idea that social group size has a positive effect on individual >longevity. Instead, our findings suggest that large and small colonies follow different demographic growth trajectories, trading off longevity of individuals >for overall colony growth. 


>Our results clearly demonstrate that workers introduced to our large colony environments lived shorter than workers introduced into a smaller colony >environment. Both principal life history stages were shortened concurrently: With other factors statistically accounted for, workers in a large colony >environment initiated foraging earlier and died after a shorter foraging lifespan.



Honey bee (Apis mellifera) workers live longer in small than in large colonies 
Olav Rueppell a,*, Osman Kaftanouglu b, Robert E. Page Jr.
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, 

Bill Hesbach
Cheshire Ct
Northeast USA
With bees in Langstroth doubles 
Have tried: 20x20 Dandant Deeps, Top Bar Hives, 18-inch frames in double deeps, Lyson Poly boxes, Bee Max poly, and a Bee Gum.  

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html