>While we're at it, what is a better queen? 

Now we are getting down to the nitty-gritty.  Very easy to recognize but very difficult to define or duplicate.  I know that I am drifting off topic and perhaps a new thread is in order but this is what we are really talking about.

 A better queen is one that produces an exceptional colony. How you measure that can vary by management style, climate, and expectations. I want big summer colonys that can take full advantage of my long multi-varietal flows, (an exceptional one will produce 300#) and still put up a full deep of winter stores. I don't want chalk brood, T-mite, bad nosema, bad temper, early swarming or an overly large winter cluster in my 5 month winter. I like it when she lasts 2 or even 3 summers and is naturally superceded and co-exists with her daughter for a time so as to have virtually no interruption of colony population. I don't want, but so far have to deal with varroa. OAV works for now.

Will a bigger egg make a better queen? It seems to me an impossible question. Interesting to talk about but hard for me to see how it will ever play into a measurably improved management or selection process. Is anyone saying that a great queen will come upon a queen cup in her day of laying 1500 +/_ eggs and lay a bigger one in it and that that alone will make a "better" queen ? In the end the colony performance is a factor of the workers that come from the "small" eggs but carry the queen's (and drone father's) genetic make-up and I doubt that her genetic make-up is determined by the size of the egg she emerged from. 

Paul Hosticka
Dayton WA

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html