Fact sheet: Artificial insemination of honey bee queens - how many mates is enough?
In this study we examined whether colonies headed by queens inseminated with the semen of 16 males outperformed colonies headed by queens inseminated with the...
HONEY BEE & POLLINATION
Fact sheet: Mating for queen quality
4 pages
Published: 5 Dec 2018
Author(s): Ben Oldroyd, Nadine Chapman
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Honey bee queens mate with 12 males on average. By mating with a large number of males, queens avoid low brood viability. Additional benefits include increased disease resistance, health, colony homeostasis, survival and productivity. This study has shown that a focus on early-spring production has achieved good results, and similar investment in assuring drone numbers and quality later in the season should now be made.