The performance of improved honey bee colonies obtained from the thirteenth generation of Iranian queens and control colonies in different apiaries of Iran

The current study was aimed to evaluate the performance of the 13th generation of breeding improved queens in Iran Honey Bee Breeding Program, and to compare them with control queens kept in private apiaries. The mother queens were reproduced by beekeepers in south of Iran to evaluate and compare these queens with queens reproduced in private apiaries across the country. To evaluate the queens, specific questionnaires were designed based on Likert scale and completed by beekeepers. The results showed that the improved queens had better performance than control queens in terms of swarming, defensive behavior and overwintering in comparison of queens kept in private apiaries. In other words, the genetically imprived colonies significantly are different from control colonies (P