A Comparison of Instrumentally Inseminated and Naturally Mated Queens

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Abstract
Sister queen honeybees (Apis mellifera), 59 instrumentally inseminated (IIS) and 59 naturally mated (NM), were produced in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and put into field colonies at 3 locations in Alberta, Canada and at 1 location in Louisiana, USA. Survival of the IIS queens was lower than that of the NM queens; 37 IIS queens and 50 NM queens survived from August 1981 to May 1982, and 18 IIS and 34 NM queens survived until August 1982 (P<0·01). At all 4 locations, the colonies with NM queens had 21–73% more capped brood in May (February in Louisiana) than did colonies with IIS queens (P<0·01). Probably because of this difference in brood production, the colonies with NM queens produced more honey. Over a 12-month period, the mean loss of spermatozoa from IIS queens was 0·9 million (28% of the original number in the spermatheca), and the mean loss for NM queens was 1·5 million (27%).