Hi all
If you read my previous post (on this subject line) I apologize to referring to a book that is one hundred years old. However, the  information appeared almost word for word in a more modern publication by some of the world's most respected bee breeders. And I quote:

Queens are usually classified as untested, tested, select tested and breeders. Untested queens are those which are sold soon after they begin to lay. If queens are held in their nuclei until their bees emerge … they are said to be tested. Select-tested queens have been in held in producing colonies until the producer can judge them not only for purity of mating, but also disease resistance, productivity, gentleness, and other characteristics. 

Queens used as breeders are kept until it is known whether their daughter queens are capable of producing colonies with most of the characteristics desired by the buyer. This requires keeping the prospective breeder queens and several of their daughters at the head of producing colonies for one or two seasons …

Most queens sold commercially fall in the untested class … The longer the queens are held in their nuclei or producing colonies the more costly they become to the producer.

From Queen Rearing By Harry Hyde Laidlaw & John Edward Eckert

¶

I haven't bought a breeder queen in a few years, but so far as I know the only assumption was that she was pure mated from top quality stock, and could lay a decent pattern. These sold for something like $300 ten years ago. You could get hand mated queens from Tom Glenn for less than that, but using the above listed criteria, they would be "tested" queens; not really breeders. 

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