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Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds(tm).  The finest in comb honey production.
http://www.rossrounds.com


-----Original Message-----
From:   Lloyd Spear [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent:   Tuesday, March 30, 1999 6:45 PM
To:     Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues
Subject:        First and second year queens

Lisa asks "I requeened in mid-July last year.  Do I have first year or
second year
queens?
Should I be expecting a strong or a weak swarm drive?"

Lisa, you have second year queens, or as close to it as you can get.

Dave Green did an invaluable service by reminding members of Bee-L that 1st
year queens are far less likely to swarm than queens that are older.  In
fact, most commercial beekeepers feel that it is difficult to get first year
queens to swarm.

The best study I know of on the effects of queen age on swarming was done in
Israel in 1994 (Lensky, The effect of the age of the honey bee queen on
worker population, swarming and honey yields...).  They considered a queen
to be two years old when she started repeating a season.  Thus, Lisa's July,
1998 queen would not be "quite" two years old now, but awfully close.  In
this study, queens two years old were up to four times more likely to swarm
than first year queens.

For many years I re-queened in the fall, which meant in late August or early
September here in upstate NY.  Since I have been solely producing comb
honey, swarming is a major concern and I saw a significant reduction when I
changed from spring re-queening (the spring of the prior year).  Last year I
experimented on a portion of my hives by re-queening in the spring for
current year production, and I was very pleased with the further reduction
in swarming tendency.  In 1999, I will re-queen 100% of my colonies in early
to mid-May.  I will use the queens being replaced to head splits or to sell
as nucs.  In either case the colonies they will head will start without a
field work force and if given enough room should get through 1999 without
swarming.

As far as I know, no detailed study has been done on the effects of queen
age on swarming in temperate climates, but studies done in England (1959),
New Zealand (1969) and Poland (1981) demonstrated that colonies headed by
one year old queens performed better than those headed by two year old
queens.  A major reason for the improved performance was a substantial
reduction in swarming tendency.  (I can provide the authors for the above
references to any who wish the information.)

Lloyd


Lloyd Spear Owner, Ross Rounds(tm).  The finest in comb honey production.
http://www.rossrounds.com