Biological and ecological studies on rearing honeybee queens (Apis mellifera L.) for commercial queens production

摘要

A study was performed in Egypt during 1997, to determine the best time for queen rearing and to establish the importance of grafting substrates, which are used in wet grafting, for commercial queen production. The acceptance and the ratio of emergence of queens were the highest using royal jelly as the grafting substrate. The lowest acceptance and emergence occurred when drone larvae juice was used. However, the body weight of emerged queens was highest with drone larvae juice, due to the small number of queen cells accepted. The acceptance and body weight were gradually increased during the season, probably due to the increase in the food resource around the apiary.