May 4, 2026

Queen Series - Honey Bee Queen Biology and Mating Behavior with Dr. Juliana Rangel (383)

In this continuation of the Queen Series, Jeff Ott and Becky Masterman welcome Dr. Juliana Rangel of Texas A&M University for an in-depth discussion on honey bee queen biology, mating behavior, and the often-overlooked role of drones in colony success.

Juliana shares her journey into honey bee research, beginning with stingless bees in Brazil and leading to her current work on queen reproductive biology. The conversation explores the complexity of queen mating, from orientation flights to drone congregation areas, and the many variables that influence successful mating—especially weather, timing, and environmental conditions.

A key takeaway is how much remains unknown. Despite decades of research, fundamental questions—such as where queens consistently mate and how mating locations are determined—are still being revisited with new technologies like RFID tracking.

The discussion highlights the importance of drone quality and diversity, emphasizing that drones contribute half the genetics of a colony. Poor drone health or limited mating opportunities can directly impact queen longevity and colony productivity. Juliana also explains how pesticide exposure and contaminated wax can disrupt normal mating patterns, sometimes leading to excessive mating or reduced sperm viability.

Queen development is another critical factor. Queens raised from older larvae may appear functional but result in significantly reduced colony performance. Proper grafting practices remain essential, especially for small-scale queen producers.

The episode closes with practical advice for beekeepers: observe queen retinue behavior, maintain good records, and reconsider the value of drones within colonies. Juliana also shares updates on her current research in Colombia and a new international project investigating queen mating dynamics and environmental stressors.

This conversation reinforces a central theme: queen quality is multifactorial, and improving it requires attention to genetics, nutrition, environment, and management practices.

For additional information where honey bees mate, listen to our conversation with Dr. Gard Otis in episode 378.

Websites from the episode and others we recommend:

Texas A&M Honey Bee Lab: https://honeybeelab.tamu.edu
Honey Bee Health Coalition: https://honeybeehealthcoalition.org
Project Apis m. (PAm): https://www.projectapism.org
The National Honey Board: https://honey.com
Honey Bee Obscura Podcast: https://honeybeeobscura.com

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Betterbee is the presenting sponsor of Beekeeping Today Podcast. Betterbee’s mission is to support every beekeeper with excellent customer service, continued education and quality equipment. From their colorful and informative catalog to their support of beekeeper educational activities, including this podcast series, Betterbee truly is Beekeepers Serving Beekeepers. See for yourself at www.betterbee.com

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We hope you enjoy this podcast and welcome your questions and comments in the show notes of this episode or: questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com

Thank you for listening!

Podcast music: Be Strong by Young Presidents; Epilogue by Musicalman; Faraday by BeGun; Walking in Paris by Studio Le Bus; A Fresh New Start by Pete Morse; Wedding Day by Boomer; Christmas Avenue by Immersive Music; Red Jack Blues by Daniel Hart; Bolero de la Fontero by Rimsky Music; Perfect Sky by Graceful Movement; I'm Not Running Away This Time by Max Brodie; Original guitar background instrumental by Jeff Ott.

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WEBVTT

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Hey, this is Daniel Ransom with the University of Wisconsin Whitewaters Beekeeping Club and want to welcome you to the Beekeeping Today podcast.

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One take.

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Boom.

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Welcome to Beekeeping Today podcast presented by Betterbee, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment.

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I'm Jeff Ott.

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And I'm Becky Masterman.

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Today's episode is brought to you by the Bee Nutrition superheroes at Global

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A quick shout out to BetterBee and all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription.

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We don't want that and we know you don't either.

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Be sure to check out

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All of our content on the website.

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com.

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Thank you, Daniel Ransom from the University of Wisconsin

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Whitewater Beekeeping Club, are you familiar with that, Becky?

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Yes, I I met Daniel at the Midwest Honey Bee Expo and they are doing some great things.

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And it's a great group of young beekeepers and I really look forward to having a conversation with them in the future

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Fantastic.

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Well he did a great job of the opening.

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Thank you, James, for stopping by and leaving that for us and our listeners.

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Becky, today we continue our Queen series with Dr.

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Huliana Rangel out of the University of Texas

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I'm looking forward to talking to her about queens and the research she's been doing with them.

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She has a long history of doing really great work with queen research, so I I can't wait to get an update.

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Yeah, and before we invite Juliana into the uh studio, we have our ongoing high VIQ listener question, and we have a really good one today.

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From hold on, let me call it up.

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But are you ready?

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I've got it.

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Caleb J.

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There we go.

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Would you like me to read it, Jen?

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Yeah.

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Since you're you're on the ball more than I am today, why don't you give it a shot

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Caleb's question.

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When combining colonies, most advice I hear tells me to separate the boxes with newspaper so the colonies mix slowly.

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Caleb goes on to write, I can't tell you the last time I saw a non-digital newspaper.

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I don't have that kind of paper readily available around my house.

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Is there an alternative material we can use?

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I love that question because newspapers they used to be very inexpensive.

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I actually stopped at a gas station to purchase a daily paper because I knew I needed to to combine some colonies and

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the price point was shocking.

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So and and I support newspapers, I support journalism.

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But when you're going to take it straight to the colony and then not read it in between not read it and and slash it too with your hive tool

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It is is a little bit of a surprise.

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But that that's a great question.

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It is a great question.

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Caleb, the quick answer for you on my standpoint is get a parrot.

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Because if you get a parrot you will always have newspaper around and it's usually on the floor, but you can take the extras out to you hire.

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So you think a lifelong commitment to a bird

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That's right.

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Caleb, that's a really good question, and it's really timely.

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Combining colonies is a common activity.

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Like Becky was saying, I think it's worthwhile stopping by and getting a paper, it'll last you a season.

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Especially if you get a Sunday paper

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And you can use it for smoker fuel.

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Uh smoker it's to start the smoker, not not the not the entire smoker fuel.

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Yeah.

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So I like the newspaper I and that's what I typically use.

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I have plenty of it around.

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I do prefer the newspaper.

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I also agree with you.

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There are some opportunities.

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I I bet if you went into like a Facebook

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Facebook free group, you might find somebody who would be very excited to share their paper with you to know that it's going to a good cause.

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In a pinch, I will tell you some of the things that I've used.

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This is kind of a confessional.

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I've used notebook paper.

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I've torn out pages of a notebook and spread them

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on the top of the deep and then and then put it over the top.

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It's it's not as good because you don't have that gradual chewing through the slits

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But it's in my opinion it was better than nothing.

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Okay, and this is the confession.

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Are you ready for this?

00:05:07.900 --> 00:05:09.660
Yeah, yeah, this is gonna be interesting.

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I've used Fondant before.

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So like a hive alive fondant pack.

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Yeah.

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would kind of hide each other's odor because it is it's it's got a nice attractive odor that that literally does attract them.

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So I I've used a a a fair amount of fondant

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to actually distract them.

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And that is not scientific.

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It has not been studied.

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And so do so at your own risk.

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But the other thing too is that depending upon the time of the year, if you go if you're in a northern climate, if you go later in the season, you're just not going to use anything for the most part because they won't chew through it

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if it's later in the season and I would use some smoke and put put them together.

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Yeah, you'd have some problems.

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I think I've used uh the craft

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type packing paper once.

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And it just it takes forever for them to chew through that and I wouldn't recommend it.

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So I I would, you know, invest in a Sunday paper, keep it in the back of your B truck or B vehicle

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or family car and uh you don't find a lot of uses for it.

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That's a really good question, Caleb.

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And thank you for it.

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We will be sending you a hive IQ hive tool

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In the mail, watch for it.

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And if you would please, Caleb and everybody else who's received a hive tool, post a picture of your hive tool in the bee yard after you've received it

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We'd love to see that and then tag us on Facebook or Instagram or wherever your social media is and let us know that you've received it and are enjoying it.

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Well coming up is Dr.

00:06:52.340 --> 00:06:58.260
Juliana Rungel and we will be talking to her about Queens right after these words from our sponsors

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00:08:21.060 --> 00:08:23.540
Hey everybody, welcome back.

00:08:23.540 --> 00:08:29.699
Sitting around this great big virtual global beekeeping today podcast table.

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We have sitting down in Columbia.

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Doctor Williana Rangell, Ranghell, Rangel.

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Yes, or Juliana Rangel.

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Whatever you want to

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Say it is fine.

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The Minnesota pronunciation is Juliana Wrangle, just so you know.

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Oh, thank you

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Williana for joining us.

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Uh sorry for butchering your name out now.

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I was sitting there practicing it.

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It just didn't help.

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But thank you for joining us.

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Been looking forward to this interview for a long time.

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You are

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A leader in the field of honey bee queens.

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Or so they say.

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Thank you.

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Liliana, thank you so much for for being a part of this queen series.

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My pleasure.

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Thank you.

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Your work is is just so important, and I I'm very excited that our listeners will get a chance to meet you and hear about what you've been up to.

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So if you would please tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got interested in honey bees, and what led you down this path where you are today.

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Interestingly, I'm currently on a sabbatical semester in my home country of Colombia.

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So I grew up in Colombia.

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and when I was sixteen I moved to the US after finishing high school.

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So I did all of my

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university studies in the US.

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First at the University of California, San Diego, where toward my junior year I met a freshly new

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Assistant Professor, Dr.

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James Nye.

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So you probably recognize that name.

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I was his first ever student

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And he's uh now like associate dean and you know has received all sorts of accolades, but I was his first ever student and he was studying at the time stingless honey bees in Brazil.

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And so I helped him with a project where he was trying to decipher if if if this particular species in the genus Nelipona could communicate

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food location just like similar to a waggle dance.

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And so he took me to Brazil and to to help explore whether these species would

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perform any kind of vibrations or signals that could communicate distance to a food source

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That's how I got started, 2001, working with stingless honey bees in Brazil.

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Then I had to graduate and uh oh I did an uh uh an undergrad project

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with stingless bees in Costa Rica, fell even more in love with bees and then for graduate school I just basically applied to a couple of programs that had

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the research, including Cornell University, and that's where I ended up going for my PhD working under Tom Seeley

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Who, by the way, was also James Nye's PhD advisor.

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So we're all kind of interconnected.

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Yeah, because I worked with Tom, but I was still interested in working with

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Stingless bees.

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And so I continued my work with Stingless Bee Communication in Costa Rica for a couple of years, but things weren't really moving.

00:11:47.660 --> 00:11:57.420
very fast or fast enough to to finish a degree so we kind of decided to switch gears and focus

00:11:58.399 --> 00:12:00.240
on reproduction.

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And back then it was colony level reproduction or swarming.

00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.199
And basically the whole topic of my dissertation was

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looking at the behavioral ecology of swarming in the Western honey bee, Apis Nolifera.

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And out of that came six papers, which is crazy because

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I considering that I worked with the Steam Les Bee project for two years, I managed to do all kinds of work with with storming.

00:12:28.420 --> 00:12:30.899
that we can talk about in a moment if you want.

00:12:30.899 --> 00:12:43.060
And then and then I was looking for a postdoc and David Tarpe, who was Tom Seeley's postdoc at a t at at some point at North Carolina State University.

00:12:42.940 --> 00:12:52.700
was looking for someone, but he only had one year of funding and that was to it was more like a a a an applied project to look at

00:12:53.040 --> 00:12:58.000
Or or to to uh head his queen rearing program.

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He called it born and bred in North Carolina and had received some funding to travel across the state of North Carolina

00:13:04.839 --> 00:13:07.959
giving queenering workshops to beekeepers.

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And I knew it was only for a year, but during that time I also applied for the NSF graduate research

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Fellowship which I received, and he was to look at supersedure and the causes of premature queen replacement in in honey bees

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And so that allowed me to stay with David for three years instead of one.

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And we can talk about those projects later.

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And so that was that was queen level

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reproductive biology and then I got my job here at Texas A&M University in January twenty thirteen and I've been

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at Texas A&M since then.

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Uh moved up the ranks.

00:13:55.160 --> 00:13:59.160
I'm now professor in the Department of Entomology and

00:13:59.920 --> 00:14:09.360
Currently every five years they allow you to do a what they call now faculty development leap instead of sabbatical.

00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:12.560
And so I've been here since late December

00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:18.860
And we'll be going back in a couple of months back to Texas to continue our work.

00:14:18.860 --> 00:14:21.900
You're now a full professor at Texas A and M?

00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:22.120
Yeah.

00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:24.760
That means they love you, Uliana.

00:14:25.080 --> 00:14:28.440
They can't get rid of me as easily, that's for sure.

00:14:28.440 --> 00:14:30.120
Yeah, that happened.

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That happened

00:14:31.620 --> 00:14:33.459
three years ago now.

00:14:33.459 --> 00:14:39.459
So I actually moved rather quickly through through the ranks, I think a little early

00:14:39.740 --> 00:14:49.180
in both occasions because you have to you start at assistant level and then you have to apply for tenure and promotion to associate and then to full professorship

00:14:49.160 --> 00:14:50.840
They just don't hand those out.

00:14:51.080 --> 00:14:52.840
You have to earn them.

00:14:52.840 --> 00:14:54.920
So congratulations.

00:14:54.920 --> 00:14:55.800
Thank you.

00:14:55.800 --> 00:14:59.720
Our series has been focusing on honey bee queens.

00:14:59.540 --> 00:15:06.820
I'd love to delve into the whole topic of swarming, but maybe we'll have to save that for another another time or later in the episode.

00:15:06.820 --> 00:15:10.500
But I do want to focus on the queens and your research on queens.

00:15:10.339 --> 00:15:24.019
and maybe queen mating behavior and we are told as beekeepers and as beekeepers get into the hobby or the profession, we're told a lot of different things about how bees mate and and queens what is

00:15:23.959 --> 00:15:26.680
Typical queen mating behavior and biology.

00:15:26.680 --> 00:15:27.720
How does that happen?

00:15:27.720 --> 00:15:29.240
Where does it happen?

00:15:29.240 --> 00:15:33.720
And from a beekeeper's perspective, maybe what defines a good mating?

00:15:33.660 --> 00:15:35.020
Just all in five minutes.

00:15:35.020 --> 00:15:37.340
I was gonna say that's a all in five minutes, right.

00:15:37.340 --> 00:15:37.900
That's a big question.

00:15:39.100 --> 00:15:41.500
That's a huge question and

00:15:42.020 --> 00:15:52.260
The answer is not easy because we don't know a lot of we assume a lot, yeah, we have assumed a lot of information about mating biology that I think in the next

00:15:52.779 --> 00:15:58.860
ten years or so we're gonna start redefining or or or so with better technology.

00:15:58.860 --> 00:16:05.260
But but if you read the books which are old, outdated literature on on mating behavior

00:16:05.080 --> 00:16:09.800
honey bee queens take about sixteen days for meg to emergence.

00:16:09.800 --> 00:16:16.600
Uh depending on the strain and temperature conditions, they can take a little longer or or shorter developmentally.

00:16:16.600 --> 00:16:18.760
But anyway, they emerge and they

00:16:19.140 --> 00:16:27.940
They s roam around the colony as virgins for maybe about a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending again on weather.

00:16:27.940 --> 00:16:30.580
Weather is very critical actually.

00:16:30.680 --> 00:16:44.440
And then they undertake orientation flights just like workers and drones do to learn their local landmarks for a couple of days and once they kind of feel ready and and know

00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:49.440
The what their home looks like so that they can come back.

00:16:49.440 --> 00:16:52.640
They undertake what we call nuptial flights.

00:16:52.640 --> 00:16:56.399
The old literature anyway says that above

00:16:56.560 --> 00:17:00.800
50% of queens take one nuptial flight in their lives.

00:17:00.800 --> 00:17:03.840
It can take anywhere from above five to thirty minutes.

00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:05.760
Forty-five percent of queens take

00:17:06.140 --> 00:17:12.940
two mating flights and they can occur either during the same day or consecu during consecutive days.

00:17:12.940 --> 00:17:17.020
And then only about five percent of Queens supposedly take

00:17:17.480 --> 00:17:20.120
three or more mating flights.

00:17:20.120 --> 00:17:25.959
And again, they can be in the same day or the the uh in subsequent days.

00:17:25.660 --> 00:17:36.140
And during this time, they will go and locate what in behavior ecology we would call a lek, which is kind of a playground of males that are waiting to

00:17:36.820 --> 00:17:39.300
to to get an opportunity to mate.

00:17:39.300 --> 00:17:40.660
L E K.

00:17:40.660 --> 00:17:42.580
It happens a lot in nature.

00:17:42.580 --> 00:17:45.380
There's no competition for food resources or anything.

00:17:45.380 --> 00:17:46.900
They're just there to mate.

00:17:46.900 --> 00:17:50.500
In in the case of bees it's called the drone congregation area

00:17:50.340 --> 00:17:57.700
And it's the cloud of drones from nearby colonies that moves around looking for virgin queens.

00:17:57.700 --> 00:17:58.260
And so

00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:06.400
The Virgin Queen probably is the one that looks for the DCA, which is that cloud of bees, because visually it's more

00:18:06.919 --> 00:18:10.360
possible to to locate a huge cloud than just one individual.

00:18:10.360 --> 00:18:18.840
And then when she gets there, then it's her pheromones that attract the drones toward the queens and then they mate.

00:18:18.840 --> 00:18:20.760
And as we probably all know, the

00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:32.200
drones insert their endothalis and the tip of the bulb of their penis inside the queen and to increase sperm sperm transfer.

00:18:32.200 --> 00:18:35.480
So because the the bulb breaks off the

00:18:35.740 --> 00:18:40.780
drone drops to the ground and dies from dismemberment.

00:18:40.780 --> 00:18:50.460
Then the next drone comes with their mandibles and legs, removes what we call the mating plug and then repeats the process.

00:18:49.919 --> 00:19:00.160
And until the very last mating, in which case the mating club gets removed by workers, not a drone, upon her return to the hive

00:19:00.440 --> 00:19:12.360
And then she will never mate again and her within the next few days the pheromone composition of of the mandibular glands among others changes completely from that of a

00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:16.720
virgin queen to that of a mated queen and that's it.

00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:21.600
Then roughly a few days later she will commence egg laying

00:19:21.860 --> 00:19:33.059
And she will store the sperm that she collected from her twelve to fifteen to eighteen drone partners in the organ called the spermatheca and she will

00:19:33.419 --> 00:19:44.140
maintain most of that sperm alive and viable in her sperm decontil she basically runs out and then she needs to get replaced so that there's

00:19:44.419 --> 00:19:48.100
a more vigorous queen with uh viable sperm in the sperm thica.

00:19:48.100 --> 00:19:48.900
Wha how did I do?

00:19:48.900 --> 00:19:49.860
Was that five minutes?

00:19:49.860 --> 00:19:53.539
You know, I was so interested in what you're saying, I wasn't even looking at the clock.

00:19:53.160 --> 00:19:57.240
I kept thinking, no wonder so many things can go wrong.

00:19:57.240 --> 00:20:00.600
This is such a complex process.

00:20:00.680 --> 00:20:05.560
Weather plays a huge part, so if there's a storm

00:20:05.919 --> 00:20:09.120
front coming during the time that a virgin's gonna go out.

00:20:09.120 --> 00:20:12.000
Uh she may get lost.

00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:15.039
She may, you know, get eaten by birds.

00:20:15.039 --> 00:20:16.720
I've heard of that happen.

00:20:17.019 --> 00:20:29.899
She may drift into another colony 'cause, you know, nowadays we have such hugely densely populated apiaries that it's e easy for a queen to get lost and get get into the wrong hive

00:20:30.040 --> 00:20:34.440
Or just not find her hive at all and and then get lost in the process.

00:20:34.440 --> 00:20:37.320
Or she may not be able to mate at all.

00:20:37.320 --> 00:20:44.040
If you have like one of these storm fronts that lasts several days, there's only so many days that they can ho

00:20:44.780 --> 00:20:47.100
uh wait for uh mating.

00:20:47.100 --> 00:20:52.460
Sometimes they just under p under mate because there's either not enough mates or

00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:56.360
Or the weather just didn't allow them to mate successfully.

00:20:56.520 --> 00:21:06.120
If they were uh stuck in the hive for a week, is there a time frame from the time that they hatch to the time that they are able to mate successfully?

00:21:05.840 --> 00:21:07.280
That's a good question.

00:21:07.280 --> 00:21:10.720
We don't know the answer to that, so that could be a cool experiment.

00:21:10.720 --> 00:21:13.120
But uh we do know that they can mate

00:21:13.540 --> 00:21:17.460
from anecdotal data of of banking version queens.

00:21:17.460 --> 00:21:24.660
So, you know, I we hold an annual Queen Rearing workshop at my lab with Sue Kobe as as the main guest and

00:21:25.019 --> 00:21:32.779
And when she's giving her talk about banking, she they always ask her how much can you bank and a queen and she

00:21:33.120 --> 00:21:37.120
banks virgin queens and for up to a couple of months.

00:21:37.120 --> 00:21:42.080
But if you bank a queen virgin queens for a week or so and then release them, they can still mate.

00:21:42.080 --> 00:21:43.440
So I would say that the

00:21:43.840 --> 00:21:52.799
critical time period would be between one and two weeks, after which they may attempt to mate, but they may not mate as well.

00:21:52.919 --> 00:22:03.080
as a freshly emerged Virgin Queen that mate within the next maybe three or four days to to a week post emergence

00:22:03.140 --> 00:22:08.500
On the other end of that time frame, can you talk a little bit about Intercast Queens?

00:22:08.500 --> 00:22:11.620
There's a critical time period during which

00:22:11.960 --> 00:22:15.400
queens can be produced in during Marvel development.

00:22:15.400 --> 00:22:20.360
If you're talking about commercial queen production, we all know that queen producers use

00:22:20.840 --> 00:22:23.160
freshly hatched larvae.

00:22:23.160 --> 00:22:35.080
They're in the egg stage for three days and then roughly within a three day period the the egg hatches into a larva and that's within that first twenty four hour period is what we call the

00:22:35.700 --> 00:22:43.780
first instar larva and that's when you should be grafting and grafting if you don't know what that is is the physical transfer of

00:22:44.120 --> 00:22:52.200
of young worker destined larvae into a queen rearing cup that will then be placed in

00:22:52.460 --> 00:22:56.940
queen cell builders that are queenless for the mass production of queens.

00:22:56.940 --> 00:23:07.100
Anyway, so queen producers are well aware that they should graft only the youngest possible larva, which is within that twenty first twenty four hour period.

00:23:07.019 --> 00:23:18.220
But in nature sometimes, let's say for emergency querying or supersedure, the queen the workers in the colony don't select necessarily the youngest larva

00:23:18.540 --> 00:23:24.140
But maybe a slightly older larva, two day old or even a three day old larva.

00:23:24.140 --> 00:23:33.020
And that's maybe because that's all there is, you know, 'cause if the queen is gone and that they within at the time that she's gone and they're

00:23:33.040 --> 00:23:38.480
they they feel queenless then there may only be the two or three day old larvae.

00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:45.840
Or in our case we did it artificially with doing the experiment just to look at what would happen when you grabbed old larvae.

00:23:45.660 --> 00:23:55.020
You can only eat graft larvae within the that third, first, second or third instar period and still get queens out of those.

00:23:55.020 --> 00:23:58.060
But the queens from really old larvae

00:23:58.760 --> 00:24:06.679
emerge much much smaller in size and they almost look like more like workers than than queens.

00:24:06.679 --> 00:24:11.159
They're small, they're not as vigorous, and their colonies

00:24:11.580 --> 00:24:18.460
are way less productive than queens that come from first instar larvae.

00:24:18.460 --> 00:24:21.740
If you graft a four or five day old larva

00:24:21.860 --> 00:24:32.179
Its developmental stage ha pathway has already been determined at age three of laurel development and so they will not turn into a queen anymore.

00:24:31.840 --> 00:24:43.840
they become potentially large workers that have been fed more royal jelly than they normally would, but they don't have the reproductive organs, the the spermatica

00:24:44.820 --> 00:24:51.540
and the the other organs are needed for an actual Qui to succeed.

00:24:51.540 --> 00:24:59.060
So that first three days uh that first N star larva is the key to the successful Yeah, and we showed doing this experiment

00:24:59.260 --> 00:25:08.140
when I was at North Carolina State that queens that come from three day old larvae are roughly I'll generalize the results because we looked at a lot of stuff like

00:25:08.419 --> 00:25:15.220
amount of comb built, alo amount of brood production, worker population, food storage, etc.

00:25:15.220 --> 00:25:19.539
drone comb production, drone sales started, etcetera.

00:25:19.539 --> 00:25:23.059
It's about roughly between twenty and thirty five percent.

00:25:23.120 --> 00:25:30.400
of a decrease in the production of all of those metrics in colonies that are headed by the older queens.

00:25:30.400 --> 00:25:33.520
So it's it's it's of huge importance that Queen

00:25:33.840 --> 00:25:40.160
producers, which they already do, 'cause they're great at a graft from v newly hatched larvae.

00:25:40.160 --> 00:25:41.520
The I guess that

00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:50.860
That take-home message was even more important for hobby beekeepers that do small scale production of queens.

00:25:51.019 --> 00:25:59.980
Just so that they are so they know that they have to improve their grafting skills so that they can ultimately produce

00:26:00.600 --> 00:26:03.080
the best possible queens up there.

00:26:03.080 --> 00:26:07.960
The other part of this though that we can talk about later too is is the drones, right?

00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:11.639
So we're focused all the time on queen quality

00:26:12.140 --> 00:26:20.780
But her quality is not just her physiological phenotype, her age, environmental conditions, but that of her

00:26:21.500 --> 00:26:24.380
Drone partners when she mates.

00:26:24.380 --> 00:26:28.780
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Welcome back, everybody.

00:28:23.840 --> 00:28:26.000
Okay, let's talk about the boys.

00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:30.160
Juliana, can you we're gonna give them just a few more.

00:28:31.520 --> 00:28:32.480
We want our due time.

00:28:32.480 --> 00:28:33.680
We want our due time

00:28:35.620 --> 00:28:37.700
Could you talk about drone quality?

00:28:37.700 --> 00:28:46.980
Well, I I actually I I'm very um passionate about drones because they are the underlooked sex in in honey bee biology.

00:28:46.980 --> 00:28:48.980
Or they were uh up until

00:28:49.600 --> 00:28:50.960
maybe a decade ago.

00:28:50.960 --> 00:29:04.159
There's a lot more work being done on drone biology now 'cause I think uh both scientists and beekeepers are more aware now of the importance of drone health.

00:29:03.919 --> 00:29:09.679
for successful productive quality of queens and therefore productivity of colonies.

00:29:09.679 --> 00:29:14.720
When I first started talking I I mentioned that there's a lot of things that we don't know.

00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:16.560
that are kind of assumed.

00:29:16.560 --> 00:29:21.680
And I want to bring up a paper that just came out because I I kind of brings home that point.

00:29:21.680 --> 00:29:25.360
It's by Gard Odes and it's open access so people can find it.

00:29:25.360 --> 00:29:27.200
It's called and it's a simple

00:29:27.340 --> 00:29:30.059
title, Where Do honey bees Mate?

00:29:30.059 --> 00:29:32.620
Uh in Apidol in Apidology.

00:29:32.620 --> 00:29:41.500
He basically c does like a review of the literature out there of mating biology and comes up with with

00:29:42.019 --> 00:29:47.860
basically the the final outcome that we don't know where bees mate.

00:29:47.860 --> 00:29:52.019
We assume that they that all queens mate in DCAs

00:29:52.519 --> 00:30:01.559
Which apparently they not always made in DCAs, that we don't know where these DCAs get formed or why

00:30:01.919 --> 00:30:09.280
Or how because we do know that DCAs are formed kind of this in the same general location year after year.

00:30:09.280 --> 00:30:13.520
And there are people who focus on on detecting and looking for these DCAs

00:30:13.760 --> 00:30:17.360
And that's definitely a topic for a different uh another podcast.

00:30:17.360 --> 00:30:26.640
But but what we basically know right now, based on this new paper, is that we don't know much about the mating of of bees.

00:30:26.060 --> 00:30:40.860
And with the newer technologies, we hopefully will be able to put some RFID back tax on on the queens and the drones so that uh we can get granular information of how far these queens are traveling.

00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:49.159
And maybe there's will detect differences among races or among strains, like Africanized versus Europe and B's

00:30:49.540 --> 00:30:59.460

Juliana Rangel

Born in Colombia, South America, Juliana obtained a B.S. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution in 2004 from the University of California, San Diego. In 2010 she obtained a Ph. D. in Neurobiology and Behavior from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. She was an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellow from 2010 to 2013 at North Carolina State University.

In January 2013, Juliana became Assistant Professor of Apiculture in the Department of Entomology at Texas A&M University (TAMU) in College Station, TX. She was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure in 2018 and Professor in 2023. Her research program focuses on the biological and environmental factors that affect the reproductive quality of honey bees (Apis mellifera), the behavioral ecology and population genetics of feral honey bee colonies, and the quality and diversity of honey bee nutrition in a changing landscape.

She is an active member of the Texas Beekeepers Association and has been invited to speak at dozens of scientific conferences and beekeeping association meetings across the USA and internationally. She teaches the courses Honey Bee Biology, Introduction to Beekeeping, and Professional Grant and Contract Writing. Since 2014 she has been the coach of TAMU’s undergraduate and graduate teams of the Entomology Games at the branch and national games of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), earning first and second place nationally four years in a row. She was the 2023-2024 President of ESA’s Southwestern Branch and is the past elected chair of the National ESA’s Diversity and I…Read More

Queen Series - Honey Bee Queen Biology and Mating Behavior with Dr. Juliana Rangel (383)

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