ISHS Acta Horticulturae 437: VII International Symposium on Pollination
SUCCESSFUL COLONY FOUNDATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERIMENTALLY HIBERNATED BOMBUS TERRESTRIS QUEENS DEPENDING ON DIFFERENT STARTING METHODS |
| Authors: | C. Gretenkord, W. Drescher |
| Abstract:
The most difficult period in year-round keeping of bumblebees is the time of colony foundation of the young queens. The queens need two stimuli: (I) a CO2-treatment inducing the ovary-development and (II) a method of stimulation for colony foundation under laboratory conditions. For (II), various methods have been tested: (1) several queens or two queens in one cage; (2) one queen per cage, stimulated with (a) honeybees, (b) terrestris-workers, (c) a combination of terrestris-workers and larvae. The last method, a combination of workers and larvae, was the most successful: 71% of the queens produced colonies with more than 100 workers and an average of 66 queens per colony. The interval from CO2-treatment to first egg laying was 14 ± 4 days, from the first brood to a colony size of 100 workers 46 ± 4 days. The young mated queens were kept in a refrigerator at 3–4°C and 60% or 95% R.H. respectively without a substratum. 50% of the queens survived the first four months. The successful foundation of vital colonies was correlated negatively with the time of storing. | |
Download Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software to read PDF files) | |
