In a message dated 10/23/98 8:50:52 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
>
> From across the pond comes some common sense. As a queen
> breeder/rearer I have been qestioning the sense of using Southern
> queens in Northern areas. In fact it was the basis of a talk I gave at
> EAS this summer.
> It hardly makes any sense to use semi-tropical bees in our
> harsh winters. As a gardener I know that I can't grow oranges up
> here, so what makes me think 'orange grown' bees will do well up
> here?
Your problem is not "orange grown" bees, but orange grown breeders.
The genetics of the queen can, and should be selected according to the
stock adapted to the area. If you want good queens for the north, select from
stock that does well in the north. Good southern breeders who breed for the
northern market do just that.
The great advantage of queen rearing in the south is that they can be
raised early, thus effectively giving another season. When I worked in
northeastern apple orchards we always tried to get our nursery stock into the
ground in mid April. When you compared this stock to what the neighbors
planted in mid-May, you could see that that month really equaled a year's
growth!
Likewise, if you are starting new hives, by the time you can raise queens
in the north, your new hive has insufficient time to build for the spring
flow, and you have to start looking for later flows. Sometimes you get into a
holding pattern, where you've got a new hive, but no income until you get it
into its second year. Commercial beekeepers can't afford that.
> There might be some hope! I sold a number of queens to a
> breeder in Florida this fall, and he's promised to let me know how
> they do in his outfit. Talk about 'coals to newcastle'!
That's exactly what a good queen breeder does, cater to his market.
I wonder if it was legal in this case though. I know that when a state
puts up a quarantine against a product from South Carolina, it is legally
reciprocal, in other words that state cannot send any of that product to South
Carolina. Not too many people know that, and the bee quarantines between North
and South Carolina, for example, were frequently ignored, even by people who
knew about them.
I had the general understanding that this was also true at the federal
level, ie, a country that quarantines against a US product would not be
allowed to sell that product here either. Do we have any legal experts on the
list?
There are three chief factors in making a good queen; genetics, mating and
nutrition. The location of rearing is not a factor in genetics, as stock can
be selected and imported from other areas. Mating is not location specific. It
depends on the breeder supplying the proper drones in the proper quantity and
having good weather.
But nutrition is very location specific. And it depends on the quality of
pollen. Queen breeders can feed pollen supplements, or even pollen, but they
are never quite as good as fresh pollen.
There is a pollen belt across the southeast that provides the best
possible conditions for spring rearing. If you put a pin in a map of the
southeast for each of the breeders that advertizes in the journals, you will
find that almost all of them fit into a belt which runs just inland from the
ocean and gulf from North Carolina to Texas. Breeders who are outside this
belt, go to it for their queen rearing. The belt is only 30-60 miles wide.
Within this belt, bees build explosively in the spring, because the pollen
sources are so rich, and nice fat queens are the rule, not the exception.
Central and south Florida is an exception to this rule. Bees and queens
are raised there, not because the pollen is good, but because the beekeepers
are there, because of the tropical climate for wintering, and for the orange
flow.
We can bring queen cells from Florida as early as March 1, and groups of
beekeepers from this area have had one be a courier to make a "cell run." But
we do this, knowing that their nutrition will be so-so and some of these
queens will have to be replaced before the season is over. I have gotten
later queens from Florida, as well, and have been disappointed.
This is really the source of David Eyre's complaints about "southern"
bees. I would suggest that the beekeepers look for quality breeders in the
"pollen" belt for the best fed spring queens you can get. Don't look for the
guy who's trying to make orange blossom honey, and raise some queens on the
side. Look for those who have been sorted out, over the years, as the best
queen breeders in the business. They will be either in the pollen belt, or
raise their queens there.
BTW, I am not trying to sell queens, so I can speak on this from a neutral
point of view. We use the few I raise for our own use or for sale locally.
[log in to unmask] Dave Green Hemingway, SC USA
The Pollination Scene: http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html
The Pollination Home Page: http://www.pollinator.com
Jan's Sweetness and Light Shop (Varietal Honeys and Beeswax Candles)
http://users.aol.com/SweetnessL/sweetlit.htm
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