Using New Cage Type for Keeping Virgin Honey Bee Queens with Investigating Impacts of Feeding Type and Number of Attendant Workers

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Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Damanhour University, Damanhour, 22516, Egypt

Abstract

Under normal conditions, each honey bee colony contains one queen. Queenless colonies are mostly supplied with new queens using commercial caged queens. In some countries, caged virgin queens are commonly sold for such purpose. Keeping virgin queens for a long period is essential for marketing and shipping purposes. In this study, a new cage type (round plastic cages) was compared with traditional wooden cages to identify impacts of cage type on queens’ survival. Also, the impacts of solid diets as well as number of workers in a retinue on queens’ survival period were investigated. The results showed that round plastic cages can enhance queens’ survival slightly higher than wooden ones. Honey candy was the best feeding type followed by creamed honey which can be used as a potential alternative especially for short caging period. Queens survived longer when five or seven attendant workers were added better than using three workers. It could be said that using plastic cages provided with honey candy and 5 or 7 attendant workers can enhance the survival of caged virgin queens.

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