Hello Dave & All,

Dave said:
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.

Many U.S. larger beekeepers use this method.

My two associates do but mainly because of the high costs of mated queens
and the labor involved with installing. My partner and I had bees in a 35
acre rented former rock quarry last spring. Monsoon rains can come and we
will never get stuck. Semi's can move in anytime of the year.

Last spring he worked around 300 hives using the replace as needed method in
the time I dequeened and installed a hundred Russian queens. So I would
guess the cost per hour (labor) per hive of annual requeening ( I do not
annual requeen my operation)
would be three times the labor cost per hive of Dave's method.

Replacing queens which are obviously failing is not rocket science.
What else are you going to do and what are you risking as the hive is
already in trouble.

Many beekeepers have no idea if a queen in their operation is a new
supercedure queen or five years old. None are marked.

Is their method inferior to mine?  Not really as they simply work on a
percentage factor. Many years the method (most commonly used by larger
beekeepers in the U.S. outlined by Dave above) works but when the outfit
slips to mostly four or five year queens then a whole years honey production
can be lost to swarming bees and drone laying queens.

Dave said:
I find it bizarre that anyone would consider replacement of all queens in
one go..

Actually quite a bit of work is also involved which equals the price of the
queen. When to replace queens   is a often discussed topic at bee meetings.
Less by hobby beekeepers which I have seen even name their queens and become
quite attached.

A few thoughts to ponder:

One large commercial operator out of Oregon replaces his queens twice a
year. Maybe he has an interest in a queen producing business. Dunno!

Brother Adam said he was convinced that queens produced larger honey crops
in the second year. I am not totally convinced but do agree that a
overwintered hive with a second year queen which has only been given swarm
control measures does *usually* produce a better honey crop than a hive
started from a nuc but there certainly are exceptions.

Almost all commercial honey producers will say that queens in the third to
fifth year are swarmy and the queen can fail at any time. These queens can
be laying a perfect pattern one week and a week later be putting out a
prolific drone pattern. A hobby beekeeper doing weekly checks will see the
problem quickly and make the necessary corrections but the larger honey
producer will simply lose production from the hive.

Beekeepers which are in the bee breeding part of beekeeping certainly see
things differently than the commercial position (U.S.) but in the U.S. most
commercial bee breeders are also commercial pollinators and honey producers.
The Weavers (Texas )and Wilbanks (Georgia)  run thousands of hives besides
the queen and package business. The production queens they sell are field
tested in their own hives. Something a small queen breeder can't say.

Bob

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