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

Abstract

A study was conducted in view of analyzing the responses of central highland honeybees (Apis mellifera bandasii) to Karl Jenter and Doolittle grafting queen-rearing methods at Holeta for two consecutive active seasons. The result of the study revealed that there was significant difference (p<0.001) between the techniques in percentage of accepted larvae and sealed queen cells. The acceptance rates for Karl Jenter and Doolittle grafting queen rearing methods were 78.19 and 50.81%, respectively while the rates were 42.75 and 25.56% for sealing, respectively. However, the result of the study showed that the rate of hatching (out of the total given larvae) into virgin queen stage in Karl Jenter and Doolittle grafting systems were about 23 and 23.8%, indicating no significant difference between the two techniques. From this study it is recommended that using Karl Jenter kit is an excellent option to overcome the problem of indentifying appropriate larvae for grafting under field conditions. However, there might be a difference in quality of the queens obtained from these two methods. Therefore, also further study recommended to evaluate the performance of queens reared using the two techniques.