New news from Florida.  Got this yesterday evening
from a friend.
Mike in LA

FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER
SERVICES

DIVISION OF PLANT INDUSTRY

BUREAU OF PLANT AND APIARY INSPECTION

APIARY INSPECTION SECTION

BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR

PRODUCING HONEY BEE QUEENS IN FLORIDA

1.  Beekeepers will maintain a valid registration with
the Florida Department of Agriculture/Division of
Plant

Industry (FDACS/DPI), and be current with any and all
special inspection fees.

2. Mating and Mating Yards:

A. Drones. A minimum of 60 European drone source
colony equivalents must be established for each 1,000
or 

fewer mating nuclei. If colonies are divided, the
European drone source equivalent of 60 European drone

   source colonies will still be required for each
1,000 or fewer mating nuclei. Seventy-five per cent of
European

   drone source colony equivalents shall be located
within ¼ mile radius of the mating nuclei yard and
the

remaining 25% shall be located within one mile of the
mating yard. No drones or drone brood may be

introduced into colonies or mating nuclei unless they
originate from colonies with European Honey Bee

(EHB) breeder queens or EHB production queens.

B. Queens and requeening. Producers of breeder queens
and production queens are required to requeen drone

producing colonies with EHB production queens on an
annual basis. Queens used in drone colonies may also

be EHB queens produced in an area outside of a
detected area or by progeny tests of worker bees
using,

FDACS/DPI approved identification techniques.

3. Breeder queens and European drone source colonies
must be headed by EHB queens.

4. Collected honey bee drone semen shall originate
from only drones produced by EHB queens.

5. The beekeeper/queen producer must maintain all
documents pertaining to the sale and/or distribution
of queens, drones, drone semen from their business and
make them available to a FDACS/DPI/Apiary
Representative.

6. Florida beekeepers should be discouraged from
collecting swarms that cannot be immediately re- 

queened from EHB queen producers.

7. Florida beekeepers should practice good swarm
prevention techniques to prevent an abundance of

virgin queens and their ready mating with available
Africanized Honey Bees (AHB) drones.

8. Maintain all EHB colonies in a strong, healthy,
populous condition to discourage usurpation (take

over) swarms of AHB.

9. Do not allow any weak or empty colonies to exist in
an Apiary, as they may be attractive to AHB

swarms.

10. Recommend re-queening with European stock every
six months using marked or clipped queens or

produce a bill of sale from a EHB Queen Producer.

11. Maintain one European drone source colony for
every 10 colonies in order to reduce supercedure

queens mating with AHB drones.

12. To prevent potential interaction with AHB, do not
site apiaries within ¼ mile of tethered or confined

animals, students, the elderly, general public,
drivers on public roadways, or visitors where this may

have a higher likelihood of occurring.

13. Treat all honey bees with respect.

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