A Peter B snip followed by > my comments...
Look at queen breeder's ads, the majority of them sell more than one breed, typically Italians and Carniolans raised in the same neighborhood. There is no effort to isolate drones, only the mothers are selected. Here is info from one of the large producer's website:

> a few comments concerning my own experience in buying and rearing queens...

1) I rear and buy a good number of queens each year.  All of these are in some quantity so the sample size is never that small but not so large that I cannot deal with the cells or mated queens in a short interval of time.  I have purchased queens from my good neighbor down in Navasota (I tend to keep these for myself) as well as queen from Hawaii (Kona) and Northern California (most of these I sell).  This past fall I lost some sites (due to legal squatters) and decided to add some Carni queens to my own stock < reason 2 is small nuclei are easier to move by hand than hives 5 boxes high.  These purchased queens were bought in lots of 50 from a large and well known California queen rearing operation and about 85% actually did look a bit like Carni... the remainder looked a lot like you standard Italian. In the past I have purchased queens (different kind) from the same operation and imho part of the selection process was in regards to how the bees responded to a syrup bucket < I should note here that California has/had been experience something of a drought during the same time interval. The queens I have obtained from Hawaii always prove to be of excellent disposition but not so robust in resisting varroa.... < an old old adage of queen rearers now long dead is... 'for everything you get you also give something up'.

2) I pretty much self taught myself how to graft and rear queens back in the mid 1980's with the assistance of a commercial fellow I worked for who had a very nice bee library.  I encourage folks to raise a few of their own queens here since 1) 'it will make you a better beekeeper' and 2) it will make you think those $30 queens are not so expensive after all.

3) I did decide long ago the quality of the queens you receive from any reputable queen breeder (ain't that term all wrong?) is most largely dependent on the skill and experience of the folks (quite often ladies) catching the queen and putting them in those little introduction cages. So any firm that can not keep employees over an intermediate time line is not the type of supplier I would choose.

4) lastly and in response to Jim Fischer comments... all of the southern states are not the same and you do want to discern between multi generation queen rearing folks in the south and those yankee beekeeper who only come down for the mild winter and/or to exploit the locals (either labor or bee location).  Some southern states (Louisiana and I think Alabama) are two that will not allow you to bring bees into the state on old comb.  This policy does keep some of the yankee beekeeper out who all talk a good game but are typically a bit short on queen rearing experience.  

Gene in central Texas (but actually in Northern California enjoying the great weather)... 

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