>>> some shotgunning of the brood area>>> Where did your buddy’s bees come from? From: Kevin Gross He was able to get a couple of queens from a VSH queen breeder (Provided queens to other VSH queen breeders for commercial production.) and these bees he has now are a combination of both local queens and 2nd generation queens from the VSH queens he had. We have three apiaries within a three mile radius and most of the colonies are a result of swarm catching and requeening from supercedure. None of the colonies in these three apiaries receive varroa treatments so are what I think are called natural survivors. I'm thinking that the drones in this area are provided by the three different apiaries and whatever feral colonies there are in the area, of which I'm sure there are more than a few. Remember that we are located about 80 miles south of Montgomery and 80 miles north of Mobile.
I'm hoping to get some queens really early in the new year, make some splits using Snellgrove boards and letting the splits evolve into two queen hives for spring honey production. I don't plan to use any of the queens I purchase for later queen breeding, just using the worker populations they produce for honey production and for worker bee supplies to make splits right after our spring honey flow concludes. I plan to replace those queen I buy with queens I raise from my own population.
Mike in LA
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