ABSTRACT. There has been much speculation about which phenotypic traits serve as reliable indicators of productivity in queen honeybees (Apis mellifera). To investigate the predictive value of queen body weight on colony development and quality, we compared colonies in which queens weighed less than 180 mg to those in which queens weighed more than 200 mg. Both groups contained naturally mated and instrumentally inseminated queens. Colonies were evaluated on the basis of performance quality, growth rate, and queen longevity. We found that queen body weight was significantly correlated with fecundity and colony quality. Heavy queens exhibited the most favorable performance and colony quality. In contrast, naturally mated,
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.