Hi Bob & all

> The way we keep bees in the U.S. is very different than in the U.K. and
> our methods might not be needed in the U.K. and the U.K methods might
> not work for us

I am not knocking the differences... The differences exist and I would like
to find out why they have arisen.

Murray said...
> The regular selection of decent queens off good strains, mated to the
> locally active drones (the vast majority of queens are still open mated
> everywhere I have heard of), in local conditions, should, if done
annually,
> accelerated the adaptation of the bees to the local conditions.

I agree that some breeding should be done every year, but only to the extent
of replacing those that are judged to be poor, not replacing every queen.

I find it bizarre that anyone would consider replacement of all queens in
one go... That really is throwing the baby out with the bath water, all the
heritage in the drones of the stocks that were best suited to the conditions
are wiped out, how does that benefit the beekeeper or his future stocks?

I can imagine that in US you might need to replace as many as 30% per annum
whereas in UK we can replace much smaller percentages, because the queens
have a longer life and many of the strains involved use supercedure as a
means of retaining useful genes and replqacing queens with low pheromone
levels. But if 50% are required to be replaced on a two year cycle then I
reckon there is something missing in the quality of the queens in the first
place.

Best Regards & 73s, Dave Cushman... G8MZY
Beekeeping & Bee Breeding Website
Email: [log in to unmask] or  [log in to unmask]
http://website.lineone.net/~dave.cushman & http://www.dave-cushman.net

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