> When you quote someone the implication is you believe what they said
unless you refute what they said.

I understand, Pete, that you post in order to stimulate discussion.  I also
agree with the above, and frequently make the mistake of assuming that you
agree with a statement that you post.  The Informed Discussion on Bee-L
often takes the form of debate, with different points of view being
argued.  I often find myself scratching my head when I'm amicably arguing
against you, although I'm sure that you and I already agree on something.

I find that arguing to learn (as opposed to arguing to win) to be a good
way to get at the truth.  And I often enjoy playing Devil's Advocate, just
to make sure that both sides of an argument are presented.  Perhaps you
could make it clear when you are playing Devil's Advocate.

> I certainly think that the issue of sperm viability needs to be looked
at. It could account for the phenomenon of early queen supersedure. In
other words, the queens could be fine but the sperm is not. In any case,
queen loss in midwinter accounts for a very high percentage of colonies
that fail during winter.

I'm in complete agreement.  We expect more and more out of our queens.  The
main determinant of queen "age" is apparently her ability to fertilize
worker eggs--when she starts to fail to do so, her workers supersede her.
But it seems to me that I observe a greater rate of unsuccessful
supersedure today than I did thirty years ago--I started to notice this
shortly after the arrival of varroa, but it could be coincidental.

With my long California season, my queens typically begin to fail in July
of their second year (Graham Kleinschmidt also found that queens were
typically good for two major colony buildups).  So I'm surprised by those
who need to replace queens more than once a season (I hear this complaint
often).  One difference may be that my own colonies have very little ag
chem exposure, and the only synthetic miticide residues would be those in
the foundation.

>It is a fact that queen rearing practices are pretty much the same as they
were 100 years ago. As Dr. Oldroyd points out, the profit margin is too
small to make radical changes in the method of mass producing queens.
Coupled with the low expectations of beekeepers, there is little incentive
to develop new and better methods.

Every queen producer sells out each spring, and they are under considerable
pressure to fill orders, regardless of good mating weather.  But the buyers
do pay attention, and the producers know that word spreads quickly through
the beekeeper grapevine.

I raise several thousand queens myself each spring for our own use, and for
nucs for sale (with the queen mated in that nuc).  But we don't sell a nuc
until the queen exhibits a very nice brood pattern good emergence (a
percentage fail this test).  However, we observe that queens whose mating
was delayed by weather may look really good for their first few brood
cycles, but then get superseded.

It's barely worth it to me to sell a caged queen at today's prices--the
margin is indeed thin (so I don't pursue that market).  My hat is off to
those producers who specialize in queen sales.  But the consumer is going
to get what they're willing to pay for.

The above said, ask yourself this question: whose queens do those producers
use to run their own successful operations?  To stay in business, they need
to consistently have strong overwintered colonies each spring.  If their
queens did not serve them well in their own operations, they'd be out of
business.

I've spoken to a number of them about the complaints that they receive.
They understand problems with poor mating weather, and generally make
things right with their buyers.  But time and again I hear them say, throw
a good queen into a garbage can, and what can you expect?  I'd be very
interested in a study that compared queen survival and performance in hives
taken from various operations, and all moved to a single yard for
comparison.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.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