Tools to Breed the Queen Bee

Breeding bees is complicated. In order to maintain a genetic record, the ideal is to know which drones the queen bred with, and when. Genetic selection for queens that will lay heavily, not lay all drones and be resistant to disease and pests, has been going on for centuries. The last few decades have seen some amazing advances.

  1. Reproduction of the Honeybee

    • Thousands of bees live and die on a queen's fecundity.

      Once a queen bee emerges from her brood cell, she must fly out of the hive and breed with a drone to be fertile. During her mating flight, she will breed with several drones before returning to the hive. Once she has bred, she will not leave the hive again unless she swarms with thousands of workers to protect her. The drone's fate after breeding is brief. A drone must turn himself literally inside out in order to insert the spermetheca into the queen, and dies within minutes.

    Natural Breeding

    • Worker bees have the power to supersede a nonproductive queen.

      The tools needed to raise natural queens are simple: hives to house the bee colony and a smoker to calm the bees for checking on queen cells. The beekeeper who desires simply to breed queens for his own use and local sale will allow the virgin queens to fly and mate with available drones. Hybridization does result in hardy stock. Hives to raise a queen are called "nuc" for nucleus hives. Small, they are populated with worker bees and frames of brood no more than four days old. Finding themselves without a queen, the workers will draw out special cells and feed the larvae royal jelly, thus producing a queen bee.

    Artificial Insemination

    • In the 1920s it was discovered that a queen bee could be artificially inseminated, a procedure that allowed complete control by the beekeeper over the genetics of both queen and drone. The tools needed for artificial insemination of a honeybee include the use of carbon dioxide as a sedative, tiny stainless steel hooks to open her up and a syringe to insert the sperm. It is not a technique for the beginning beekeeper. Then in the 1940s it was further refined to make the procedure successful most of the time, allowing breeders to make great leaps in creating strains of bees that were more productive and resistant to diseases like foulbrood and pests like mites.

    Raising Queen Bees

    • Bees, more than any other species, are changed by human intervention.

      Breeding queens can be done in the same hive as an existing queen if a device called a queen excluder is used. A screen with holes small enough to permit the workers to pass through, but not the queen, will keep the two from fighting. Most modern beekeepers replace their queens within two years. Queen bees can live up to nine years, but after the first two their egg laying decreases by about a third, leading to a smaller, weaker colony. The queen dictates the nature of a colony, as all the workers are her progeny. An aggressive queen makes for an aggressive colony, and the queen's ability to resist diseases can lead to a healthier colony. Most beekeepers find it easier and cheaper to simply mail-order a new queen from a commercial breeder. For some, the challenge and knowing the genetic make-up of their colonies are sufficient to motivate them to do their own breeding.