Authors: Philip A. Moore, Michael E. Wilson, John A. Skinner
Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) are highly social insects and the colony organization is divided into separate castes that allow for division of labor and specialization in particular tasks. The honey bee queen is the sole reproductive female in the colony and she specializes in egg laying, while the remaining female “workers” perform all other colony duties and the male “drones'” only function is to mate with a virgin queen. The quality of the queen, often associated with her reproductive ability, can have profound impact on a colony’s honey production, disease prevalence, and overwintering ability. Queen failure is consistently listed as a cause of colony mortality in recent winter loss surveys (vanEnglesdorp et al 2010). Therefore maintaining high quality queens is essential for every beekeeping operation.