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Some pages may have indistinct La qualite d'impression de print especially if the original certaines pages peut laisser a pages were typed with a poor desirer, surtout si les pages typewriter ribbon or if the originales ont 6te university sent us an inferior dactylographiees a I'aide d'un photocopy. ruban use ou si I'universite nous a fait parvenir une photocopie de qualite inferieure. Reproduction in full or in part of La reproduction, m6me partielle, this microform is governed by de cette microforme est soumise the Canadian Copyright Act, a la Loi canadienne sur le droit R.S.C. 3970, c. C-30, and dsauteur, SRC 1970, c. C-30, et subsequent amendments. ses amendements subsequents. 5IASS STORAGE OF HOsEY BEE QUEENS DURLh-G THE WINTER hIargriet H. Wyborn B. Sc., Simon Fraser Cniversity, 19'7'7 THESIS SITBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE in the Department of Biological Sciences @ hlargriet. H. LVybor11 1991 SIMON FRASER VNIVERSITY July. 1991 All right reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part., by photocopy or other means, without. permission of t,he author. National Library 6ibliotheque nationale 1*1 oiCwada du Canada Acquisitions and Direchon des acquisitions et Bibliographic Services Branch des services bibliographiques 395 Weibngton Street 395. rue Wellinglon Ottawa, Ontarlo Onawa {Ontarlo) KIA ON4 KIA ON4 The author has granted an L'auteur a accorde une licence irrevocable non-exclusive licence irrevocable et non exclusive allowing the National Library of permettant a la Bibliotheque Canada to reproduce, loan, nationale du Canada de distribute or sell copies of reproduire, prgter, distribuer ou his/her thesis by any means and vendre des copies de sa these in any form or format, making de quelque maniere et sous this thesis available to interested quelque forme que ce soit pour persons. mettre des exemplaires de cette these a la disposition des personnes interessees. The author retains ownership of L'auteur conserve la propriete du the copyright in his/her thesis. droit d'auteur qui protege sa Neither the thesis nor substantial these. Ni la these ni des extraits extracts from it may be printed or substantiels de celle-ci ne otherwise reproduced without doivent 6tre imprimes ou his/her permission. autrement reproduits sans son autorisation. ISBN 8-365-78167-X APPROVAL Name: Margriet Hilda Wyborn Degree: Master of Science Title of Thesis: MASS STORAGE OF HONEY BEE QUEENS DURING THE WINTER Examining Committee: Chairman: Dr. B.D. Roitberg, Associate Professor Dr. M.L. Winston, Professor, Senior Supemsor, Department of Biological Sciences, SFU Dr. R.A. Nicholson, Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, SFU - Ur. ~.me*ie,Kesearch Scientist, Yubh c kxammer' Agriculture Canada, Agassiz Research Station Date Approved -. PARTIAL COPYRIGHT b ICENSE ..'. *.. ...- !# . .. I hereby grant to Simon. Fraser Unlverslty the rlght $0 lend my thasis, proJect or extended essay'(the ?itle of which Is shown below: to users of the Slmh Frsser Unlverslty ~lbr.;r~, and to make part let or s lngls coples only for such usors or in response to a request from the library of any othor unlverslty, or other educational Instltutfon, on its own behalf or for one of Its users. I further agree that permission for multlple copylng of thls work for scholarly purposes may be grantod by me or the Dean of Graduate Studies. It 1s understood that,copylng or publlcatlon of thls work for flnanclal galn.shal1 not bo allowod without my wrltten permlsslon. T l t l e of Thes 1 s/ProJect/Extended Essay PlASS STORAGE OF HONEY BEE QUEEDs DURING THE ~WI'ER Author : (s lgnatureo (date) -4BSTRXC'T >;torage of Apts rilelltfira L. queens over the winter. xithin indi~:idtml colony Imrlkrj in screened wr;otlen cages. is biologically and eco~lornicallyfeasable. Appronirrlat,ely 500 queens were in?roduced into v;trious storage systems for three years of winter tests. Individually wintered queens in nucIeus colonies were t,he control and these were cornpared to colony "banks" wit..h queens held in ( 1) screened wode~icages (2)esclrrder cages (/3 screened cages and transferred to mini-nuclei i~ritillate ILIarch, (4j exclwler cages constructed in the form of a cube and held in colony Ixmks. and (.5) excluder cages held over indoor colonies. Queens held in excli~tfr~rcages (2) and stared in queenright or queenless colony banks showed poor survival in all three years of test-ing, and is not viable for conlmercial use; survival for any one year, or any treatment, was never greater than 2.5%. E:ct.remely high initial nlort,alit.yof greater than 80 percent., in the indoor (.5) ar,d redesigned systems (4). I)ot,li with excluder cages, precluded further esaminat.ion. 111 cont.rast, an average of SO% of queens survived t.hat were stored in screened cvooclen cages ( 1) and held insicle queenless colony banks. We found no differences in strrvival of cpeens that were moved between colonies and t.hose t.hat remained in the same co1011y for six n1011ths. The success of these syst,enls was due to the preparat.ion of colorly banks that contained large nunlbers of adult. workers produced from two- cpezning the colony, t.hat were ix-ell-fed, and insulated in groups of four, to preserve heat and reduce \\-orker clustering in t.he winter. Queens froni tli&rent. xinter storage syst.exns were introduced t.o colonies, and cpiern attributes were esarnined in order to compare the offecbs of different st.orage reginws 011 queen f~mctiunand behavior. Those queens that survived t.he winter were virt rialty identical in cpali€j-and performance in all storage systems. Mass queen srorage is rcononlica1~-viahlt. for the lwr.keqm-, Ilt.c.,~l~st-t !w rt,t;il cost of production and srorage is less than :he revenue fro111qirrtm sa1c.s. t~.pcc-i,tlly irhere -IS queens are stored in the colony bank. The 1ar:est prcipc-rsticw rlt' tc,till cmis for wintering queens is labour. Thus. if the beekeeper dws tlie l;ilwi~rl~irl~st>lf, r licl iabour income as well as the returns from queen sales conw tuck to t 11t. Iwt-l<t~c.l)er. liecalculated that annual profit for a commercial beekeeper wtlc-, ililes his o\vn labour for sorage and hires workers for queen production is SlG.ti25 wht~lISI)~ queens are successfdly stored over the winter, and sold for $it) each in the spri~~g.If all labour costs are paid ot~kto a hired worker, profit woulcl be $13.21 5. I t 1l;iri i: 1I;irli Rr11ncr. .John Pass. llark Ciardner. md Gerhard Gries ~ho$a7.-e iIlt. thr. ericol~r;t~cc~~ient;i~lr.i Suppcsrt to thke that step towards my thesis. I appreciate I l~t-;tisist;tnc-c of C'll;irIt!\r 11-arren dnd Errm~ert Harp who provided ideas on Ircwkc.epi~~gand tvin~ybee v:intcring. Andrev; Kurn and Dan 3:IilIer for their feedback ;m(l sl~pportt hrn~~gfiourthe research. and John Gates and Ken Collins for their r-c,listrtlc-tivecriticism of [he eccjnornlc ana!yses. St ltrlents and staff in the \f:inston-Bordeu laboratory assisted with many aspects ctf my research. and the research ~.oi~ld110t have been possible without their fjc-111. \Vit Iir,ut exception, r heir energy and ent husiasnl made this project possible. 'The arr1r:ous t~sksof riieas~lrinacolonies adother duties were completed by a most. capable and efficient crew corisisting of Simon Colley, Rob Currie, Linda Ferguson, Heat hcr Higo, Daya Howpage. St even Iiolmes, Iien Naumann, Debra Swain and Les 1Villis. The finicky job of transferring queens i11t.o cages was completed by Les bVillis and Iit.11 N;~umann. Phil Laflarmne and Charley FVarren provided queens for the project.. Phil Laflamme also injected new ideas int,o the project. and together with his t>wkerping skills, was an invaIuabIe addition to the project.. Thanks also t.o (.'alneron Eckert for his help K-it11 extracting and measuring honey comb; Debbie Swain who always cheered us up: Simon C'olley, Daya Howpage, Linda Ferguson, ~IIC~Steven IioImes who helped at. \-arious phases of the project.. John Borden's st ticten t s and Leslie C'hnng adtlrd energy aand at.mosphere t,o t.he laborat,ory, and mack it. a great place to work. I thank Florence Ryder and t.he staff of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries at. Xbbotsford provided space for the honey bee colonies. and hospitality. iVarm t.hanks are also estended to Rob Currie for his expert advise on statistics. arid the stinlulating conversations on research projects. .. A /,st met 111 .- lr-hriowIcttgerr~e~~ts 'l'ahk of ( 'ont en t s i-i i List of' rl'al)lf*s 1:i List of Figures :i I. EXTRODT-C'TTOS 1 2. C'OLOIW STORAGE SYSTEMS FOR HONEY BEE QUEESS 3 2.1 Hetrie\v of C'olony storage systems for honey bee queens 3 2.2 Overview of Research 17 2.3 hlaterials and Xlethods 2 1 2.3.1 Oltt~borstorage systems 23 I.