> And I often enjoy playing Devil's Advocate, just to make sure that both sides of an argument are presented.  Perhaps you could make it clear when you are playing Devil's Advocate.

Hi Randy
Fair enough. The truth is, a lot of the time, I can see both sides (all sides) of the question and wouldn't necessarily side with any of them. 

> The above said, ask yourself this question: whose queens do those producers use to run their own successful operations?  To stay in business, they need to consistently have strong overwintered colonies each spring. 

This is an interesting point. When I worked in Northern California, with a well known queen breeding family, we (the crew) went through and requeened every colony with a fresh queen, which came right off the line, so was representative of what was being sold. However, one must bear in mind that these queens were not expected to perform beyond one year, either in the colonies (which were being used to produce packages, nor with the packages that were sold. 

One could make a case that what was being raised were bees that built up fast, produced a lot pounds of bees which were sold to make colonies which would also build up fast and produce a lot of honey the first year. There was little emphasis on other qualities such as life span, resistance to disease, wintering ability, etc. 

Now, that was decades ago and I wager the emphasis has shifted to include these traits. All the same, I wonder how one can claim to have a "selected" honey bee strain when one buys breeders from all over and breeds them in the same locale. You can't claim to have bees that are selected for this or that when you are actually mixing them all together. 

PLB

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