>
>  So long as they are golden and don't sting much.
>

Again, you keep focusing on this magical demand for color of queens, absent
a selection for other traits. I'm not sure why you keep pushing this agenda.

As Randy mentioned, he cares not of color alone. I care not of color alone
(they could be black, grey, or purple for all I care, I don't even notice
most of the time). I don't know anyone else who cares about the color of
their queens absent honey yields, disease resistance, brood buildup . . .

Where is this hypothetical mass of customers who want golden queens, but
actively fail to care if they produce good offspring otherwise?

>
> Charlie Mraz:
>
> > We do not requeen normal colonies, but let each colony requeen itself.
>

Interesting. Can you share the source Pete? If there's more, I'd love to
read the rest.

I myself operated a similar system for the past 5 years. I imported about
25% of my queens each year, and bred from my best producing 3 colonies,
requeening the remaining 75% that needed it annually. If the queen was
producing fine, I let her continue to go until superseded or failure
(followed by replacement). Never managing drone populations specifically.
Between last summer and this spring something went terribly wrong though,
and the vast majority of my hives turned incredibly vicious. Gloves became
mandatory (which I despise). They became a threat to neighbors and my young
daughter. A few were more aggressive than the rest, but once the pheromones
are in the air in a yard, even a normal hive will turn defensive. Aware
that my drones (and thus gene pool) were carrying vicious tendencies, I was
forced to requeen almost all of my hives from imported stock, reset for a
year, and try selecting for my best producing colonies next year. Hopefully
my DCAs won't be flooded with nasty bees next year. What a shame to lose
that 5 years of breeding. Lessons learned though.

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