Hi Everyone,
Just some thoughts on this.  I know Brother Adam discusses this in
his book " Breeding the Honey Bee" but I don't have my copy here.  The
longevity of a worker appears to be directly linked to onset of
foraging activity from what I have read so periods of poor foraging
weather will result in workers living longer due to less foraging
rather than genetics alone.  I seem to recall reading that one study
looked at mortality of foragers and concluded that foraging is
dangerous duty and workers did not survive long after they began to
forage.  Many of the mortality factors were environmental i.e. had
nothing to do with the potential longevity of the bee.  One such
factor is predation in the field.  If this is indeed true ( note big
if ) colonies that raised the most brood before the honey flow would
be the ones with the greatest honey gathering potential since they
would have the largest field force.  This is exactly what most of our
colony management is trying to accomplish - have the greatest field
force available at the start of the nectar flow.

Longevity might be good but I want a colony that will have the
maximum number of workers available at the beginning of the nectar
flow.  Our flows here in Minnesota are usually fairly short and
intense so this may not be the case in other areas.

blane

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Blane White
MN Dept of Agriculture
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