Comparison of colony foundation performances and colony development traits of young queens mated with males produced by queens and workers in bombus terrestris

Insects, which live in nature or are cultivated, are very important for continuousness of sustainable agriculture and protection of flora. Bees play very important role in this case. After honeybees, bumblebees are the second most reared bee species in more than 20 thousand bee species. Like honeybees, bumblebees have haplo-diploid reproduction system. In contrast to honeybees, B. terrestris workers are also capable of egg laying toward the end of the colony life even if in the presence of the queen. Males are produced from these unfertilized haploid eggs laid by both queens and workers. In a colony, males which produced from queen and worker eggs are not different morphologically. In mass rearing process under controlled conditions, all males which produced in colonies are collected and mated with young queens. This experiment was carried out to determine and compare the development traits of colonies founded by queens mated with these two male groups. To produce two different male groups, old worker's group and virgin queens' group were formed. Young B. terrestris queens produced by standard colonies were mated with males in two groups of males. After the hibernation period, queens were allowed to found colonies and some colony development characteristics were determined. Results showed that no significant differences in the all colony development characteristics except colony foundation ratio (p<0.05) were found between colonies founded by queens mated with males produced by queens and reproductive workers.