temperament Archives - Professional Beekeepers

2022 Plan Bee Survey results: breeding objectives

ruthluckner2023-02-22T13:58:58+11:00Breeding, Genetics, Pests and diseases, Plan Bee|

Plan Bee, Australia’s national honey bee genetic improvement program conducts an annual survey of beekeepers and breeders to determine attitudes and opinions surrounding honey bee genetics. This annual survey is a crucial activity as it helps guide Plan Bee, ensuring that the needs of the industry are well understood, and that the future direction of the project is aligned to the future of the industry. In 2022 82 beekeepers gave ‘weights’ to their breeding objectives. For example, they allocated 60% to honey production and 40% to temperament. Honey production (33%) and temperament (23%), were the most sought after traits, just as they were in 2021 (Figure 1). However, since 2021, the weighting of these two traits has increased even further. [...]

Temper, temper

No one likes a cranky colony. They can cause a lot of grief for urban beekeepers and pollination contractors in particular. It seems simple enough to just select the nicest hive and use it to breed from, but measuring temperament can actually be quite difficult. Scientists love to measure things. Preferably the way in which you measure something should be objective and repeatable – not influenced by feelings or external factors, and you should get similar results each time you make the measurement. Scientists have come up with many ways to measure temperament: Hitting a hive and counting how many angry bees come at you The distance you have to run before they stop trying to get you The time [...]