Comparative evaluation of Doolittle, Cupkit and Karl Jenter techniques for rearing Apis mellifera Linnaeus queen bees during breeding season

Abstract

Comparative evaluation of Doolittle, Karl Jenter and Cupkit techniques of Apis mellifera Linnaeus queen bee rearing was done during spring (mid February- mid April 2013) breeding season. The highest acceptance of cell cups (66.00 %), queen cells raising (64.00 %), their sealing (60.67 %) and emergence of gynes (54.67 %) was recorded in Cupkit apparatus. Maximum weight of newly emerged gyne was recorded in Doolittle method in plastic cell cups (212.36 mg), while the mean weight was 184.96 mg in case of Cupkit apparatus. Overall, Cupkit proved to be the best option for queen bee rearing because of its better performance in terms of acceptance of larvae (66.00 %) and the number of successfully produced gynes i.e. 16 queens/colony/cycle of 12 days.

Comparing Responses of Local Honeybees (<i>Apis mellifera</i> L.) to Karl Jenter and Doolittle Grafting Queen Rearing Methods

“…Accordingly, the emergence of queen bees on the basis of accepted larvae and sealed queen cells were 29.22 and 55.71%, respectively for Karl Jenter while the corresponding rate of emergence for Doolittle grafting were 46.47 and 86.68%, respectively indicating significant difference between the two methods. The result of this study agrees with the findings of Dhaliwal et al (2017) who reported that the rate of emerged queens on the basis of accepted cells for different rearing techniques were significantly different [15]. According to the report by Dhaliwal et al (2017), the emergence of queen bees in the Cupkit apparatus and plastic cell cups were 83.28 and 83.34%, respectively, while the respective rates for Karl Jenter apparatus and wax cell cups were 52.20 and 54.73% in that order [15].…”

“…In Karl Jenter queen rearing system, the average acceptance was 78.19% while in Doolittle grafting method the rate was only 50.81%. Similarly, differences in mean acceptance of queen cell cups in Cupkit apparatus, Karl Jenter apparatus, plastic cell cups and wax cell cups with acceptance values of 66.00, 50.00, 58.66 and 56.00%, respectively were reported by Dhaliwal et al (2017) [15]. However, the acceptance rate for Jenter queen rearing system in this study (78.19%) is higher than the acceptance rate in Karl Jenter apparatus reported by [15] which was 50%.…”

“…But the most important factor could be due to lack of identifying appropriate age and injury to the grafted larvae in Doolittle grafting due to personal error compared to Karl Jenter system. In line with this, [15] indicated that graftless method has better acceptance as it avoids any injury to larva and larva is fed royal jelly from first day onwards. Similarly, Büchler et al (2013) described that acceptance of larvae depends on different factors, among which the most important include: quality, strength and developmental stage of the nurse colonies, age of the workers, age of the grafted larvae, presence of open brood in the cell-starting colonies, rearing sequence and method of rearing [6].…”

“…In this study, sealing rate of the queen cells both on the bases of given and accepted larvae was generally lower compared to previous reports. For example, Dhaliwal et al (2017) reported that sealing of cell cups ranged from 50.67% to 60.67% on the basis of total cell cups given while it was ranged from 88.57 to 97.50% on the basis of cell cups accepted for different queen rearing techniques [15]. Similarly, N. Adgaba et al (2018) reported that 71.84% of sealed larvae (from the total grafts) into pupae stage in wet grating for A. mellifera jemenitica in Saudi Arabia [7].…”

“…Generally, in different queen rearing techniques the rate of sealing queen cells reported to be varied. But besides the types of techniques used, the population size of the colonies, amount food resources available for the bees during the breeding seasons, races of the bees were indicated as some of the factors to influence different parameters in queen rearing [15][16][17]. Therefore, the relatively low rate of sealed queen cells for both queen rearing techniques in this study could be one of or the combination of these factors and this suggests the importance of further investigations to determine the important factors that affect raising and sealing of queen cells in different queen rearing techniques under local conditions for different honeybee races.…”