>Thanks, Bob, for an interesting point by point response to Charlie's
>writing.

I have always admired Charlie. Beekeepers like Charlie do not come along
everyday.

>.Prior to varroa, I loved bees too, but my favorite was the New World
>Carniolan. I bought
breeder queens from Sue and sold thousands of queen cells grafted from them.
I always
thought they were the ideal bee.

The last carniolans queens were NWC stock. In spring 2007 all the beekeepers
I spoke with which got stock from her breeder queens had problems. The
queens were beautiful and I had no introduction or supercedure issues. The
problem which myself, A large California beekeeper running thousands of 
hives
and Bell Hill Honey in Missouri (to name three) was the queens were not 
prolific, Kept a
small brood nest when no reason to do so and no activity at the hive
entrance when a flow was on.

The three of us felt the breeder queens were not selected for the traits
commercial beekeepers need and instead for a perfect abdomen or wing
length.

Over half the hives headed by her queens did not produce a surplus so those
hives cost us money to keep around. We get a few dinks with all queens we 
use . The selection of your breeder queens is the most important part of 
being a queen producer.

Many of us we cuss when the queen producer tells us he/she is out of
Italian stock and has to ship us carniolans. Never seem to be out of 
carniolan stock.

As far as your love of carniolans I think they are a fine bee for most
beekeepers and the Russians are also but both lag behind the performance of 
a
Italian bee. True you need to manage an Italian bee. With management I can
shut the queen egg laying down when ever I want or stimulate egg laying when
I want.

Carniolans and Russians are harder to trick into doing what you want.


I might ad the Italians queens which came from the same queen breeder (
raised at the same time in the same weather conditions) as the carniolans
were some of the best we have received from the breeder.

The queen producer  knows we were upset with those NWC as we told him so.

I have a friend which keeps Yugo bees. Loves the bees!

 I live in farming country and about every type of cattle is around but most
serious cattle folks keep an Angus or Hereford /angus cross for very good
business reasons.

Profit margins are thin in most agriculture businesses.

bob.

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