Queen failure due to temperature extremes during shipping

[BeeMaster2]

BELTSVILLE, Md., Feb. 10, 2016?Temperature extremes during shipping and elevated pathogen levels may be contributing to honey bee queens failing faster today than in the past, according to a study just published by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in the scientific journal PLOS One.

"Either stress individually or in combination could be part of the reason beekeepers have reported having to replace queens about every six months in recent years when queens have generally lasted one to two years," explained entomologist Jeff Pettis with the Bee Research Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, who led the study. The Bee Research Laboratory is part of USDA's Agricultural Research Service.

Queens only mate in the first few weeks of life. Then they use the stored semen to fertilize eggs laid throughout their life. Queen failure occurs when the queen dies or when the queen does not produce enough viable eggs to maintain the adult worker population in the colony. Replacing queens cost about $15 each, a significant cost per colony for beekeepers.

Commercial beekeepers usually order their replacement queens already mated, and the queens are shipped to apiaries from March through October. Researchers questioned whether temperature extremes during shipping could damage the sperm a queen has stored in her body. During simulated shipping in the lab, inseminated queens exposed to 104? F (40? C) for 1-2 hours or to 41? F (5? C) for 1-4 hours had sperm viability drop to 20 percent from about 90 percent.

In real-world testing, queens, along with thermometers that recorded the temperature every 10 minutes, were shipped from California, Georgia and Hawaii to the Beltsville lab by either U.S. Postal Service Priority Mail or United Parcel Service Next Day Delivery in July and September. Researchers found that as many as 20 percent of the shipments experienced temperature spikes that approached extremes of 105.8? F and 46.4? F for more than 2 hours at a time. Those exposed to extreme high or low temperatures during shipping had sperm viability reduced by 50 percent.

"The good news is with fairly simple improvements in packaging and shipping conditions, we could have a significant impact on improving queens and, in turn, improving colony survival," Pettis said.

Assessments of the queens sent in by beekeepers for this study found that almost all of them had a high incidence of deformed wing virus; Nosema ceranae was the next most commonly found pathogen.

Beekeepers had also been asked to rate the performance of each colony from which a queen came as either in good or poor health. A clear link was found between colonies rated as better performing and queens with higher sperm viability. Poorer performing colonies strongly correlated to queens with lower sperm viability.

"We saw wide variation in both pathogen levels and sperm viability in the queens that were sent in to us, and sometimes between queens from the same apiary in July and September, so there is still more research to do. But getting queens back to lasting two years may well be one of the links in getting our beekeeping industry back to a sustainable level," Pettis said.

[GSF]

Thanks Jim, good info.

[KeyLargoBees]

excellent info if somewhat alarming for those of us in the south ;-P

[jimineycricket]

Yes, but the first step in solving a problem is determining what the problem is!

[MangoBee]

Good info. Thanks for posting it!

[Acebird]

"The good news is with fairly simple improvements in packaging and shipping conditions, we could have a significant impact on improving queens and, in turn, improving colony survival," Pettis said.

I wonder what the additional costs would be.

[mtnb]

That is so interesting!

[Dallasbeek]

Where do queens sell for $15?

[BeeMaster2]

When you buy them in large numbers like the commercial guys do they are less expensive. They are buying hundreds of them.
Jim

[GSF]

you get what you pay for (lol)

[Rurification]

Dallas, I'm glad you asked that.  I wondered the same thing.   

If shipping is doing that much harm to the queens, then that's another good reason to buy local.  Here's hoping more local people start raising queens.

[Colobee]

I've experienced battery boxes of queens arriving with the candy in the outer most cages a bit melted - suggesting some heat exposure. Unfortunately I don't have any accurate follow up data to confirm resulting queen failures. I certainly didn't see abnormally high failure rates.

I'll pass on the "local is better" discussion, other than to say, well yes, maybe, ...sometimes, it depends. There's a similar chance your local bees will eventually ( sooner than later) end up mean, or disease prone, or swarmy, or don't winter well, or don't gather much of a surplus if any, and minus a multitude of other positive traits you may take for granted - in other words with none of the traits that large scale queen producers have been selecting for, often for many human generations.

I guess it depends on your goals, and resolve, and capabilities, and experience, and throw in some luck, and cooperation from Mother Nature. I would still recommend that anyone try rearing their own queens. Early successes will most likely be the result of "Hybrid Vigor". Just don't expect a long term "magic bullet" without some serious elbow grease.

[Acebird]

in other words with none of the traits that large scale queen producers have been selecting for, often for many human generations.

In most areas the constant flow of breader queens will keep the gene pool populated so it is unlikely it will degrade as you imply.  If commercial beekeepers switch to local stock vs. purchased stock they are still going to be selecting for desirable traits.

[Michael Bush]

They are speculating.  A more likely scenario, and one being investigated by several of the prominent scientists at the moment, is the small gene pool...

[Dallasbeek]

in other words with none of the traits that large scale queen producers have been selecting for, often for many human generations.

In most areas the constant flow of breader queens will keep the gene pool populated so it is unlikely it will degrade as you imply.  If commercial beekeepers switch to local stock vs. purchased stock they are still going to be selecting for desirable traits.

"Local" depends on where you live.  If you live a few miles from one of the big breeders, those are local bees. 

Interesting stuff in "The Beekeepers Handbook".  They say to mark the queens and if you go in later and find an unmarked queen, you should replace her with a new queen right away.  Oh, yeah!  Marks don't come off, the queens your bees make are no good, etc.  "Experts" who write books know everything!  It's a good book over all, but we always have to read these things with some awareness that the experts who write books are not really all-knowing.  Take it all with a grain of salt, huh?

[Acebird]

They are speculating.  A more likely scenario, and one being investigated by several of the prominent scientists at the moment, is the small gene pool...

Who is speculating Mike, and which bees have the small gene pool, local or commercial breeders?

[Colobee]

In most areas the constant flow of breader queens will keep the gene pool populated so it is unlikely it will degrade as you imply.  If commercial beekeepers switch to local stock vs. purchased stock they are still going to be selecting for desirable traits.

I agree - the influx of "high" bred  queens & bees is the unknown ingredient. It's either the gorilla or the bee in the room. Location is everything. Assuming one does "everything" right in the physical process of rearing queens , they are still released "into the wild" to mate.  The recipe for rearing fabulous queens isn't all that difficult, even if there are a lot of ways to screw it up. The techniques for getting them well mated is quite another thing. It will take at least a couple years to accurately evaluate just how much better or worse those "local" queens actually are. I guess there's only one way to find out. It really boils down to your definition of what is "good" in a colony. The trend has shifted somewhat towards bees that survive, vs honeybees that gather a surplus crop. Most folks should understandably take pride in any self reared queen that lays a nice patch of worker brood.

I was only "implying" that it might not go as well as many assume and repeat. Some queens WILL be great - likely as good or better than anything one can purchase. If  & when those desirable trait's begin to diminish, some folks may end up re-visiting well established  successful breeding techniques, or just importing more "non-local" queens.

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade - we should probably all be trying to rear local queens within our own capacity. I just find the mantra "local queens are better" to be a bit misleading or misunderstood. Like I said up front - well yes, maybe, it depends...

One last thing - I find most books & articles to be a fairly reliable source of information. The internet is a mix of some good info and a fair amount of inaccurate & repetitive babble usually NOT found in the literature. Kind of like two jigsaw puzzles thrown into one box.

[Dallasbeek]

Good post!

[Michael Bush]

>Who is speculating Mike, and which bees have the small gene pool, local or commercial breeders?

I meant the overheating or temperature extremes theory.  Yes temperature extremes will affect the fertility of the queens, but why would there be more extremes now than in the past 100 years the queens have been mailed...

[Dallasbeek]

>Who is speculating Mike, and which bees have the small gene pool, local or commercial breeders?

I meant the overheating or temperature extremes theory.  Yes temperature extremes will affect the fertility of the queens, but why would there be more extremes now than in the past 100 years the queens have been mailed...

The amount of care given by postal workers?  I have a friend who retired from carrying mail for  the postal service that says no young guy should really want to work there now.  And judging by the amount of mail that's misdelivered to my box, they don't pay a lot of attention to what they're doing.