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| Date: | Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:01:12 -0800 |
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As I raise the handful of queens for my own personal use, I have often wondered if those older, bigger, fatter matronly queens produced better queens than the newer, sleek and tawny babes running around in my new splits. I gave the benefit of the doubt to the more experienced gals.
Quoting Eric Mussen (who quoted German bee researchers) in his latest newsletter from UC Davis, larvae from older queens affected the quality of the offspring.
In the briefest of summaries, as the queens aged, their eggs decreased in size as did the embryos inside. Smaller embryos had higher embryo mortality.
Now I wonder how this affects the queens I raise. Should I be choosing the younger queens to raise new queens?
Information in detail can be found in "Maternal Age Effects on Embryo Mortality," Annals of the Entomological Society of America, 102(5): 881-888, 2009.
Grant
Jackson, MO
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