> You raise some interesting questions.  It would be nice to survey
> more Australian beekeepers about on this.

At the risk of being accused of being biased as I am a queen bee  breeder, I 
can assure you that under Australian conditions, particularly those in 
Queensland, there are a lot of very successful commercial honey producers 
who have based their operations on annual requeening.

From my own experience, I keep about 5 of the best producers from one year 
for use in my breeding program.  I know this because I have a record of the 
number of supers that come off hives because of my barrier system.  It 
happens that those queens that produce the most honey for the season are " 
always" well behind in production for the next season when I compare them to 
hives that have been requeened in the previous autumn.  These kept queens 
are now just past 17 months of age whereas the requeened hives are headed by 
queens that are 5 months old.

Trevor Weatherhead
AUSTRALIA
Coming to Apimondia in Australia in 2007? 

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