At 05:11 PM 1/14/99 -0700, you wrote:
>> Beekeeping is one of the few animal industries where there is not a
>> great  emphasis on the male line.  Bulls, rams and stallions always
 
>Maybe the reason drones don't sell for thousands of dollars is that once
>they are bred, that's it  :)
 
Hi Allen & Dr. Wenner,
 
A counter point I will make is that in reality there are queen breeders who
think nothing of spending hundreds if not thousands of dollar to purchase
breeder queens tested by someone they trust. I had two old time friends
that did this work for themselves and some of the most well known and
respected queen breeders in California who then would sell the daughters as
their special or own stock.
 
This is the way is was but in all of this bee breeders "secrets" I am
disclosing for the first time I can not recall anyone buying "tested"
breeders for drone mothers. I can't say it was not done as even today I
don't know it all and I did know several good old time queen breeders that
paid good attention to their male lines but they were a small minority.
 
Anytime anything is posted the brings a response from Dr. Adrian Wenner,
its worth the read, both posts of course. Adrian reminds me mostly of Dr.
John Eckert who I was fortunate to have spent many late night hours talking
bees in his later years. Both men have the same eye for bees that I like to
think I have. I have looked into tens of thousands bee hives and no two
looked the same even those who had the same mothers. Its what interested me
most about keeping bees when I should have been watching the nickles &
dimes I was looking for the differences in my bees which only pays with an
occasional new observation of something that was always there but
overlooked by most others..and that puts little bread on the table.
 
Anyway Dr. Wenner, like Dr. Eckert and a few others from the past are able
to see these things, the same things that we beekeepers see and explain
them so that even I can almost understand them. Are they always right, NO,
but all have one thing in common, an open mind.
 
Bee and drone congestion areas have always been interesting to me and I
really got excited to read of Adrian's experiences today in old downtown
Santa Barbara, and increased feral populations. I have heard from other
areas of the country that are experiencing similar occurrences. Some of
this is no doubt due to the excellent moisture and bee pasture conditions
of 1989. Some of this will carry over into a 2nd year in the California
Coastal areas that have Blue Gum trees and southwestern desert areas that
have Mesquite because these plants express flush conditions the years
following extra normal moisture.
 
Moving away from pasture there are areas favored by drones for mating and
there are also areas favored by bees for swarming or swarm resting. I have
written of my experience in that old cherry orchard in San Jose that I kept
100 hives during the prune and cherry bloom until I was surrounded on three
sides by homes and schools. I would bust these hives up each spring and re
queen them and still catch a hundred swarms and I discovered later on I was
not the only one catching swarms out of this orchard. But not from my own
bees I discovered early on when going through them looking for cells to
identify the hives that had or were going to swarm and could find few. That
old orchard was like a swarm magnet and I am sure swarms from miles away
made their way to it each year and have often wondered about today when it
has been replaced by homes. My bet is it a jack pot for the local pest
control and swarm removal business.
 
Chow, Andy-
http://beenet.com