Hi all

The price of bees is at an all time high. Queen bees can run you $28, packages $130, nucs $180. Not including shipping. So -- the issue of queen supersedure becomes even more significant. Check out the following, if you want something to think about. 

> The responses of seven lines of Australian honeybees to V. destructor were compared with the responses of a stock of Italian honeybees from the United States known for its susceptibility to V. destructor and two stocks known for their resistance to V. destructor, Russian honeybees (RHB) and a stock expressing the varroa sensitive hygiene trait (VSH). The experiment began in May with uniform colonies having uniform infestation of V. destructor. V. destructor infestations measured as the percentage of adult bees infested in the Australian lines and the Italian stock rose from less than 10% in August to over 25% in October. 

> From August to November, 44% of both the Australian and Italian colonies died while strongly exhibiting symptoms of parasitic mite syndrome. In contrast, RHB and VSH colonies displayed comparative resistance to V. destructor. Their infestation rates rose from about 5% in August to 10% (RHB) and 14% (VSH) in October. Likely, some of this increase resulted from invasion pressure by mites from the dying Australian and Italian colonies. During the August to November period, 4.4% of the RHB and 14.3% of the VSH colonies died. In comparisons of the seven Australian lines, only nonsignificant and trivial differences were found for infestation and mortality rates. Although high levels of infection were found across all stocks and lines, no stock or line exhibited an adverse effect from N. ceranae infection.

> Lifetest results showed that the four groups (Australian, RHB, VSH and Italian) had insignificant differences in the average number of days queens survived. Italian queens had the highest average survival of 95 days, followed by RHB (94 days), then VSH (83 days) and lastly, Australian queens (80 days). Nonetheless, these insignificant trends in survival days reflect the death of many colonies or the supersedure of original queens after the October inspection (Table 1). In November, survival of colonies with original queens was: RHB queens (43.5%)  VSH queens (28.6%)  Italian queens (12.0%)  Australian queens (7.9%), with the difference in the survival of RHB and Australian queens being significant (P = 0.05). Interestingly, supersedure rates for the four groups were similar.

Responses to Varroa destructor and Nosema ceranae by several commercial strains of Australian and North American honeybees
(Hymenoptera: Apidae). Thomas E Rinderer, Benjamin P Oldroyd, Amanda M Frake, Lilia I de Guzman and Lelania Bourgeois. © 2012 Australian Entomological Society doi:10.1111/aen.12003

Take home message: Average survival rate of purchased queens: three months. Less than half of the colonies lasted the whole season, even those with mite resistant stock. Non mite resistant: over 90% died. 

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