Queen Bee Sperm Storage Holds Clues to Colony Collapse

Analyzing fluid from queen bees’ specialized sperm sacs can expose stressors

Honeybee colonies depend on the queen's store of sperm. Credit: Getty Images

A honeybee queen mates only during one brief period of her life, storing sperm in a sac inside her body for later use. But if she fails to keep that sperm viable, her colony may collapse. This “queen failure” is a main factor in the U.S. drop-off in bee numbers. Identifying reasons for queen failure has proved difficult; queens show no clear symptoms when it happens. But a new study offers a way to zero in on causes, which could lead to a valuable diagnostic tool for beekeepers.

The queen is the only female in her colony who can reproduce. If she cannot lay viable eggs that produce both drone and worker bees, the colony's population plummets, says Alison McAfee, first author of the study and a bee researcher at North Carolina State University.* This is a significant concern for humans; as pollinators of crops such as blueberries and apples, “honeybees are responsible for around between $16 billion and $20 billion worth of economic contribution to agriculture,” says McAfee, who also works for the University of British Columbia. Climate change further threatens honeybees' survival, with previous research showing that high temperatures are also associated with colony loss.

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