Breeding for improved fertility of honey bees

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) colony productivity and fitness is dependent on queen and drone quality, a culmination of the larval rearing environment, sexual selection and beekeeper-driven trait selection and management. Selection for both production and fertility traits of honey bees is not widely practised across commercially managed populations as it is in other livestock species. Scant research has been undertaken on drone and queen phenotypes, reproductive productivity and performance as it relates to selection for fertility traits. The opportunity for increased hive productivity through maximising fertility traits, in tandem with established commercially important colony level traits in honey bees exists globally. In this review, research on the characterisation, heritability, and breeding of known fertility traits of honey bees is discussed and recommendations are given on the most practical candidate traits for selection.