----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Malone" <[log in to unmask]>
George said:
> However, let us NOT worry about queen shipment to Canada; but, rather, to
> educate the great number of queen "producers" in this country into  queen
BREEDERS.

Big  difference  in my opinion between the queen breeder doing queen
breeding and many queen producers or in other words those which are
interested in only filling queen orders with mated queens.

I have had good luck with queens from queen "producers" and bad luck at
other times but queens from "queen breeders" I have always been happy with.

Both fill a need in the U.S. but there is a difference as George points
out!.

Keith said:
 There will always be beekeepers, like myself, who Breed
their own queens, in the open, locally to keep an acclimated stock of honey
bees suited for the location that they keep bees.

Almost all production queens are open mated but to insure the drone you want
is mated when dealing with "breeder" queens instrumental insemination is a
must.

A few years back over a thousand queens were raised from a single Marla
Spivak breeder queen my partner purchased. Open mated would simply not work.

Keith said:
In my opinion, I think those breeding queens need to take a more holistic or
integrated approach instead of singling out certain genes that are only
taken out of the whole. More will be lost than will be gained by using A.I.
or I.I., it will be like throwing the baby out with the bath water. With
that said there is nothing wrong with maintaining a pure strain of honey
bees but A.I. and I.I. need not be employed to do this.

I hope we can agree to disagree on the above!

 I find II (instrumental insemination)  an invaluable tool for the
professional queen breeder and researcher.

To sum things up you can "never" be absolutely positive about which  drone
which has mated with the queen unless II is used . Period!


Keith said;
However, let us NOT worry about queen shipment to Canada; but, rather, to
educate the great number of people who "KEEP BEES" in this country into
"BEEKEEPERS" by teaching them to rear and mate their own queens.

I have been able to buy better queens than I ever raised myself but enjoy
attempting to raise queens. Unlike Keith I like getting queens from several
queen breeders rather than trying to raise queens from a closed population
(which I did for many years).
I do wholeheartedly agree with Keith that all beekeepers should try to raise
and mate queens at some point in the beekeeping experience to complete their
beekeeping knowledge.

Bob

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