Effect of Certain Biological Factors on the Longevity of Caged Bees1

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Abstract
During an 11-month period 23 lots of bees, each consisting of 25 to 103 individuals taken from the flight board of a hive, exact age unknown but selected as far as possible so that only guard bees would be obtained, showed a mean longevity of 16.24[plus or minus]0.209 days for the entire group. Bees taken in winter showed a small but statistically significant increase in longevity over those taken in summer; longevity of those taken in spring and autumn fell about halfway between. Tests on the longevity in captivity of 17 lots of bees of known age, ranging from 1/2 day to 80 days at the time of capture, showed no clear-cut decrease in longevity until an age of > 30 days was reached. A trend curve constructed from the data at hand gives some evidence that the life expectancy tends to increase slightly for approx. the first 2 weeks and then to decrease gradually to 0, in this expt. at about 90 days. Neither the presence of a queen in the cages during captivity nor the permitting of the bees to take a cleansing flight into the open had any consistent effect on their longevity in these tests.

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