> >This research has supposedly changed queen breeders practices in
> Australia.
> https://rirdc.infoservices.com.au/downloads/03-049


Thanks for this reference, Geoff!  It's the one that I was trying to
remember.

Some aspects of the study are difficult to interpret, since the researchers
didn't check for date of first laying, starting their  day count at the
"expected date of emergence," without specifying how many days after
grafting that was.  But as would be expected, it was clear that only some
of the queens had mated by Day 7, and it appears that some had not finished
mating by Day 14 (not at all unusual in my apiaries).  Unfortunately, they
didn't include weather information for the mating yards.

It was clear that it would be a waste of money to cage queens at Day 7
after emergence.  Some will still be virgins, and the acceptance and
survival of Day 7 queens was poor.

By Day 14 after expected emergence, acceptance was generally good.  This
would be a fairly typical caging date for some queen producers, very much
contingent upon mating weather.  By Day 21, most queens would have been
laying for at least a week (again contingent upon weather), and their
acceptance was generally good.

However, of great interest were the results for queens displaying
"satisfactory performance" 15 weeks after introduction.  As far as this
metric, the queens caged 3, or even better, 4 weeks after emergence clearly
outperformed those caged earlier.

This result did not appear to be due to ovariole development, but rather to
the older queens' increase production of certain pheromones prior to caging.

Thus, the experimental results do not support the hypothesis that it is the
establishment of egglaying that is important, but rather suggest that it is
the establishment of pheromone production prior to caging and introduction.

Take home: the results of the study support the hypothesis that allowing
the queen to lay for a week or two in the mating nuc prior to caging,
results a greater rate of successful performance 15 weeks post
introduction.  Note that even with late-caged queens, only 60-87% of
introduced queens scored satisfactory at 15 weeks, with substantial
year-to-year differences.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

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