As cold storage for overwintering honey bees becomes more accessible and dialed in, many beekeepers are looking to expand the use of cold storage beyond overwintering colonies. This winter, we have 2 beekeepers, Copoco’s Honey in Colorado and They Keep Bees in Massachusetts, using BeeBox for overwintering queens. Through our research and working with beekeepers, we have learned a lot about queen banking.

Purpose and Benefit of Queen Banking in Cold Storage

Queen banking is becoming increasingly essential for beekeepers to maintain their operations all year long. The main goal of queen banking is to ensure a stock of queens during non-peak seasons for requeening colonies or splitting colonies. Many Northern beekeepers will overwinter in the South and West, and when they come back north after pollination or winter, they are popping at the seams. Colonies will need to be requeened quickly, however, not many queens are for sale in March or April. A queen bank allows for beekeepers to requeen their colonies with their own, trusted stock.

In conversations with beekeepers, Southern and Western beekeepers are re-queening their colonies at least once per year - often more. There is evidence that winter reduces the queen’s metabolism and allows her to preserve eggs and live longer. The reduction in metabolism also happens in cold storage, and may help enhance queen survival during winter.

Queen banking is not limited to winter, but overall could improve queen availability and reduce dependence on the seasonality of queen rearing.

Bi Kline shows off their plump queen as they are inspecting colonies and getting ready to graft. Photo by Bi Kline.

Optimal Conditions and Techniques

Our beekeepers are taking a variety of approaches for their operations, which are informed by the available literature and expertise. Caged queens are placed into a queen bank that has been filled with young nurse workers and plenty of food to keep the queens alive. Beekeepers are testing a range of temperatures, but humidity is kept relatively high in the units, at about 75% RH. The units are constantly monitored with our temperature, humidity, and CO2 sensors.

Gaining Insights

Queen banking in cold storage could be a powerful tool in combating colony loss and preserving diversity in a beekeeping operation, especially if queens are accepted and start laying in the spring at high rates - Ellen Topitzhofer calls it “The Holy Grail” of beekeeping. This winter, we hope to gain insights into what settings will be optimal for banking queens, how many queens work in these queen banks, and what colony configuration works best for these settings. Our cold storage units allow beekeepers to control many environmental settings and monitor the units constantly, putting much of the control into their hands.