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JOURNAL OF APICULTURAL RESEARCH, vol.59, no.4, pp.564-568, 2020 (SCI-Expanded)
To test the effects of requeening in Bombus terrestris, at colony foundation phase, a total of 60 colonies were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups. The first group (S) involved colonies that were requeened with newly hibernated queens after all the workers in the first brood had emerged. In the second group (P), we requeened the colonies with newly hibernated queens when they reached some 40 workers and in the third group (C), original queens of colonies were retained and considered as a control group. Queen acceptance rate was far lower in the P group (40%) than in the S group (90%). Colony lifespan was significantly longer in the P group (83.57 +/- 3.55 days) than in the C group (76.70 +/- 2.76 days). We found no significant difference in the number and timing of sexual production between groups. The results suggest that the requeening method is not suitable for bumble bee mass rearing. But, during the early phase of colony growth if the founder queen dies, introducing a new queen to the colony can be useful to reduce colony loss.