A comparison of three queen rearing techniques to improve sustainable small-scale beekeeping in the northeastern United States

Winter losses of honey bee colonies in the United States can be very high; small-scale beekeepers in northern states frequently lose 50% or more of their colonies over the winter. To replace their losses, beekeepers often buy bees and queens from southern states. However, queens reared from northern-adapted stock may survive better in northern climates, and transporting queens from non-local regions can increase pest and pathogen spread and affect local population structure and genetic diversity. Rearing local queens could improve northern beekeeping sustainability, but traditional queen rearing (10-day grafting) requires specialized knowledge and resources, making it inaccessible to many beekeepers. We compared the efficacy of 10-day grafting to two more accessible queen rearing methods: 1) a novel 48-h technique, which is an abbreviated version of 10-day grafting, and 2) walk-away splits, in which a beekeeper simply splits one colony into two and leaves the queenless colony to rear a new queen. We reared approximately 100 queens using each method and compared queen survival and worker population size, as well as queen size and reproductive characteristics for a subset of queens. We found no significant differences in queen survival, size or reproductive characteristics between treatments, suggesting that simpler methods may produce queens as effectively as traditional 10-day grafting. These methods can be easily taught to small-scale beekeepers, improving access to local queens that are better adapted to northern climates.