SUCCESSFUL COLONY FOUNDATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF EXPERIMENTALLY HIBERNATED BOMBUS TERRESTRIS QUEENS DEPENDING ON DIFFERENT STARTING METHODS

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.

VII International Symposium on Pollination

C. Gretenkord, W. Drescher

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1997.437.31