Thesis
INDOOR QUEEN BANKING AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OUTDOOR BANKING PRACTICES
Washington State University
Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
01/2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005461
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/119590
Abstract
Honey bee queens are the most critical individual of a complex eusocial society. Most beekeepers usually replace their queens every 2 years in the U.S., making the demand extremely high. Northern California is one of the major queen production regions in the United States. Queen banking is the storage of queens individually in cages and placed in a colony intended to be cared for by bee workers. Queen producers bank excess queens as seasonal demand subsides in the summer to provide an on-demand supply to beekeepers. This approach, however, might be threatened by wildfires, decreased forage availability, and climate change. This study investigated the potential to bank honey bee queens indoors as an effective system during the summer. This research compared current summer outdoor queen banking practices in northern California with banking in indoor temperature-controlled storage facilities. Treatments were separated into three groups: indoor queen banks, outdoor queen banks, and a set of unbanked control queens. Three different stocking rates were tested (50, 100, and 198 queens per bank). Queen quality parameters and survival data were assessed using laboratory and field assessment methods. There was no significant difference in queen quality parameters apart from the weight of indoor queens banked at the rate of 100. There was no significant difference in the survival of queens held indoors vs. outdoors. However, there was a significant difference in the survival of different stocking rates. Queens banked indoors at a rate of 100 were more likely to survive than other stocking rates, both indoor and outdoor. Queens banked outdoors at the rate of 198 were more likely to survive than other outdoor banking rates. Although the weight of queens banked indoors at the rate of 100 was less than that of queens banked outdoors, other indoor banked queens had a similar weight as outdoor queens. Indoor banking performed as well as outdoor banking in terms of queen quality parameters and survival. Banking queens indoors has the potential to mitigate increased risk to the valuable fall queen supply caused by increasingly hot summer temperatures in northern California.
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Details
- Title
- INDOOR QUEEN BANKING AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OUTDOOR BANKING PRACTICES
- Creators
- Stephen Olusola Onayemi
- Contributors
- Brandon K Hopkins (Advisor)Walter S Sheppard (Advisor)Allan Felsot (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Entomology
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Science (MS), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 45
- Identifiers
- 99900592055401842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis