There is both anecdotal and empirical evidence to suggest that honey bee queen longevity has decreased in recent years, leading to premature supersedure and queen failure. This is particularly evident when beekeepers create new colonies from packages, where many queens are immediately rejected or replaced after only a few weeks. Relatively little is known about the mechanisms that trigger supersedure in honey bees, although previous studies have shown a strong link with open brood suggesting that brood ester pheromone (BEP) may be involved. We installed new packages into hive equipment with either no treatment (Control), exposure to BEP during package transport and for the first 10 days after installation (BEP), or one frame of open brood (Brood). We found that over the course of the 12-week experiment, Control colonies grew the least, Brood colonies started stronger but leveled off similar to Control colonies, and BEP colonies grew slowly initially but continued positive growth through the end of the experiment. Moreover, we found a highly significant effect of treatment on Outcome—whether the initial queens were immediately Rejected (within 5 weeks), Superseded (after 5 weeks), or Accepted, with Brood, BEP, and Control colonies having 86.7%, 53.3%, and 33.3% acceptance, respectively. Finally, we found that the open-brood:adult-bees ratio significantly diverged 3 weeks prior to queen replacement between accepting and replacing colonies. We suggest that while BEP alone is insufficient to deter premature supersedure, there are clear benefits to queen longevity and package-installation success when establishing new colonies with frames of young brood.

有轶事和经验证据都表明，蜜蜂女王的寿命最近几年有所减少，导致过早的替代和女王的失败。当养蜂人从包装中创建新的殖民地时，这一点尤其明显，许多女王在几个星期后立即被拒绝或更换。关于引发蜜蜂过度诱捕的机制知之甚少，尽管先前的研究表明与开放的育雏有很强的联系，表明可能涉及育雏酯信息素（BEP）。我们将新包装安装到蜂巢设备中，不进行任何处理（对照），在包装运输过程中以及安装后的前10天内暴露于BEP（BEP），或者使用一机架敞口育雏器（Brood）。我们发现，在为期12周的实验过程中，对照菌落增长最少，繁殖菌落开始变强，但趋于平稳，类似于对照菌落，BEP菌落最初生长缓慢，但在实验结束前一直保持正生长。此外，我们发现治疗对结果的影响非常显着-最初的皇后是否立即被拒绝（5周内），被取代（5周后）或被接受，亲本，BEP和对照菌落的发生率分别为86.7％，53.3％ ，和33.3％的接受率。最后，我们发现，在女王更换之前的3周，接受和更换菌落之间的开放亲缘：成年蜜蜂比率显着不同。我们建议，虽然仅靠BEP不足以阻止过早的替代，但是在建立具有年轻育雏框架的新菌落时，女王的长寿和成功安装包裹具有明显的好处。