National Honey Bee Breeding Strategy 2024-2029
In all livestock industries, genetic selection has been used to increase animal productivity and, by extension, enterprise profitability. The Australian honey bee industry is no...
HONEY BEE & POLLINATION
Semen Production in Drone Honeybees
92 pages
Published: 10 Oct 2008
Author(s): Rhodes, John W.
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The importance of drone semen quality studies has its effect on the mating success of queen bees. Sufficient numbers of mature age drones, each producing a large volume of semen containing a high number of sperm are required to be present at commercial queen bee mating apiaries to result in queen bees with the maximum number of sperm present in their spermathecae after mating. Low numbers of sperm in the spermathecae of queen bees after mating contributes to early supersedure resulting in increased costs to the beekeeper from queen replacement and reduced colony production as colonies weaken in strength or become queenless during the period of queen replacement.
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