In the perennial search for a viable queen honeybee, many U.S. beekeepers replenish their supplies each autumn. But meeting that demand is increasingly difficult: Honeybee populations are in decline, partly due to climate change. Colony health largely depends on queens, and most U.S. queen producers are located in California, where rising temperatures and wildfires are becoming the new norm.
A new peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Apicultural Research presents one possible solution in refrigerated "queen banking" - essentially keeping excess queen bees in temperature-controlled summer housing.
