In fairness,  I must shall we say confess,  my association with package bee producers.  I own a company called bee-bus which sells items  such as boxes and funnels to package producers.  To that end  every year I travel to and meet with most of the package producers.  I have in the last 5 years had occasion to meet with, dine with  talk over and in some cases even work in the yards of some of the best bee producers.  Some I would call friends,  some merely acquaintances.   Too that end i am very aware of the efforts and skills in both queen production and bee production on both the east and west cost.  Its a small group, about 20 serious people.  And to a fault every one of them has one goal.  to produce the best bees they can for sale.  Some obviously are more skilled than others.  But while the majority of the country is bemoaning losses and pesticides and a billion other ways to kill bees,  these guys plod along and cover our collective butts.  roughly speaking to the tune of 500,000 units a year for packages and around 6 million queens.

Now  Like everyone else,  I hate buying new bees every year!  I would love to find a way to keep them going,  for me its a 5000 dollar annual problem.  towards that I bought into the Local TF concept a few years ago,  To say disappointed would be a huge understatement.  my casual observations were that Tom Glens queens and local queens were no different than production package queens. so i researched,  and grilled,  and tested.   last year I finished a 2 year trail.  consisting of 12 each of local wild, Hygienic, and both an east coast and west coast production queens.  measuring both surviveibility and  honey production and .  while I never intend to make my results public as the results are only a tiny snapshot.  It was clear to me,  that the local or hygienic is a myth right now. there is no difference in my test on genetics of the queens.  they all die from mites around the 18 month mark if started in mid June (IL time frame)  and usually don't survive the first winter if started in March.  queen replacement (brood breaks) were the only differences in survival.  those that superseded lived longer.  Other than that  zero difference,  with honey production being higher with package queens.(small edge but it was a bad season)

Two other huge clues for me  
One is before me,  here in this county there was one local beek.  he runs about 30 hives in a good year.  His entire operation is based on swarms.  nothing more,  never bought bees anywhere.  And every year is exactly the same.  70% losses or better.  interesting as hes does nothing for swarm prevention,  in fact he likes it.
The second is more personal,  there are other bee sites,  and amoungst them as most of you know are some real TF wizards and experts. with some pretty great claims.  But Bar none,  so far its been a song and dance.  I try to buy queens (I won't post names) price is not an object.   The answer is usually the same tap dance,  Sold out,  or no time to produce queens, or my favorite  one moron from AR posted he filled all the queen orders!  (not even close he refused to acknowledge the 7 emails requesting queens despite his typed replies of Not ready yet)
The funny one this year was " I can't take time from my day job" Laughed...  Your sitting on what you claim is the solution to varroa mites and you can't make time to share it with the world??  this same guy post about 30 replies a day on BS.......  

There are some guys who are serious about it and having some luck and sharing it,  Kevin here is a good example,  no crazy claims....  just honest assessment.

Now  to how it relates to topics.   Whats happening in the industry is a lot of middlemen and local beekeepers are using snippets like posted here, and other  public forums like ABJ and BC to hock there local bees.  To the point of condemning package producers,  why?  because there product require it.  the reality in most cases is the local product is inferior and higher priced.  but its a huge margin to that individual so the slight twist of the truth is okay.  In fairness I don't think the majority are intentionally dishonest,  but when we as the upper ranks of bee people feed into the myth,  then they take license and run.  who pays the price?  the hobby consumer.  the ones that may very well be the future of the professionals.

Now  don't take it that I am against local nucs or queens,  quite the contrary.  sometimes it can be the best way.  But if you need a queen this week in PA  who are you going  to call??   How do you explain to a new beekeeper that the foul brood in his hive came from the guy he bought the nuc from?  (common problem here with MO nucs coming into the state)

What gets my goat,  is people propagating a falsehood,  and no one calling them on it.  at the expense of truth.  And on top of that speaking out against the guys who are so busy producing bees they don't have time to defend themselves.  You won't see Mike Gardner, or Ray, or the weavers here defending their products and efforts.   But I am dang sure of one thing,  these men are putting 1000% effort into it.  for some Podunk wizard to claim his local bees are better is flat insulting.  I also know for a fact,  these same people have also scoured the US and the world for answers.  so while we are here typing, Some of them are flying around the world trying to find answer.  Funny that all these guys live in the south and ship bees.

So if your going to make a claim locals are the answer,  you should be able to back it up,  how are they different?  can you prove it?  and how much do you want for samples??  wheres the evidence?  I hope it happens,  but as the ABC of bees teaches us,  the men involved for over the last 100 years do not believe that yet, and packages and southern production to be ready early in the years,  is how most newbies start and learn.

My utmost respect to the men and women making it happen,  and something else to those who want to badmouth them.



I pondered this for the last cpl days,  as I don't want it to come off wrong,   Isn't not intended to make any claims or advertise products in any way I am a nobody in this business.  just don't like what I see as trashing of the best and brightest by misusing terms and ideas.

Charles Linder
www.bee-bus.com

             ***********************************************
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